Special Delivery
by Blood Dark Sun
Summary: Engmano AU. On a sweltering summer day, FedEx driver Arthur Kirkland makes a delivery that will change his life. Rated for language.
1. Chapter 1

_This is the story I've been waffling on for a few years, Arthur as a Fedex driver. Not sure how long it will be._

…

**Special Delivery.**

Arthur sweltered in the driver's seat of his Fedex truck.

Bloody hell, what a day. His truck's air conditioner had broken yesterday, and they hadn't been able to schedule it for service until the weekend. Today, Friday, was a miserable 97 degrees outside, no wind, sun glaring down, and the deliveryman felt sticky and irritable after several hours of humping boxes around and trying to be pleasant to clients. If only the company allowed employees to wear white polos in summer, that would have helped a tiny bit. But no. Bloody dark blue, all year 'round. He cursed and leaned his blond head out the window as he drove, hoping to get a little relief, squinting his green eyes against the wicked sunlight. (He'd forgotten his sunglasses, too.)

Only two deliveries left to go, and then the Brit could take the truck back to the depot and ride his bike home. That would allow more relief: he could take his shirt off, once he'd left work, and cycle home bareback. And his apartment was comfortable and, moreover, had an excellent air conditioner. He planned to crank it down to sixty-two degrees when he got in there today, just to compensate for this shite.

Or maybe not. Lili was supposed to come over. He hoped to finally get somewhere with her tonight, and if the place was freezing, she might not be willing to succumb to his advances. Maybe he should just take a cold shower instead. That would kill two birds with one stone.

Arthur spared a few minutes of his boring drive to think about her. He'd been dating the slim young blonde for two months. She was a cute girl, not a bombshell, but a nice, quiet girl, just the kind he liked.

Just the kind he used to _think_ he liked, anyway. Maybe he was too nice and quiet himself. Their dates were always polite, sweet, somewhat antiseptic overall. He didn't really feel any kind of pull towards her, and in fact sometimes he forgot they were dating! But she was the only girl he'd felt comfortable asking out here in America, so he continued to ask her out. At least dating Lili meant that his more troubling thoughts were kept at bay.

Arthur had two gay friends: his cousin Alfred, and Alfred's current boyfriend Sadik, a Turkish man. They were both great guys, and they always seemed happy together. They were the first gay men that the Brit had ever known, too. Before learning that the hearty, bluff Alfred (bulging muscles, captain of the football team, expert with guns, women falling all over him) had this inclination, Arthur had always expected homosexuals to be the stereotypical type: swishy and girly. But both Alfred and Sadik (also a strong chap, who liked to hike, box, jet-ski, and go hunting with Alfred) were big, manly men, and not afraid of their sexuality.

But Arthur was afraid of his own.

Sometimes, usually after a date with Lili where their only physical contact had been hand-holding and a chaste goodnight peck on the cheek, Arthur wondered if this was the way a relationship should be. It always seemed so bland. Maybe the Brit was gay, too, and hadn't realized it? But he was too embarrassed-slash-afraid to examine his feelings further. He rationalized that if he indeed was gay (or even bi), some man would have caught his attention by now. Someone would have made him think about it more in-depth, made him think about giving up on Lili and on girls in general. Certainly he'd never been attracted to Alfred, or Sadik. He snorted.

Eh. Enough of this. He needed to get done with his route.

Pulling up to a small home on the edge of a larger development, Arthur put on the parking brake and swiveled in his seat. He'd moved the last two packages to the passenger seat so that he wouldn't have to rummage around in the back of the truck, which was (if at all possible) even more blistering than the front seat. Picking up this delivery, a slim overnight envelope, the blond slid out of the truck, wiping sweat from his forehead, and plodded to the door, ringing the bell.

When the recipient had signed for it and taken the envelope, Arthur tried to smile his thanks and then headed back to his glaring white vehicle. Blast, this heat was horrible! It was even difficult to breathe. He really couldn't wait to take off his shirt. It was sticking to his back, sticking to his sides and chest – ugh. But he rallied a bit, thinking of cool iced drinks to distract himself.

His final delivery was in a development he'd never been to before. The local office had redone the routes lately and this was the first time he'd had to deliver something here. Peering at the house numbers (which gave him some excuse to lean forward, away from the sodding vinyl seat), he found the one he needed, the home of one Julius Vargas.

Whew. _Bloody_ nice place. Big, private, well-kept front lawn shaded by old growth trees, pretty budding hydrangeas here and there…bet _they_ had working air conditioning! They might even have a pool in the back. Arthur groaned with longing and pulled into the driveway.

A bead of sweat trickled from his hairline all the way down his face and dropped onto his shirt.

His soaking wet, sticky, smelly shirt.

Bugger this. Arthur didn't need a signature for this small box. All he had to do was set it on the porch and go. Frustrated and thoroughly sodden, he peeled off the shirt and sat it on the passenger seat. Who would know? Once he was done with this package, his shift was officially over, and nobody could fault him. The only way he'd get in trouble would be if a Fedex employee saw him and reported him. And, of course, his name tag was on the shirt, so even if this Vargas wanted to call customer service and complain, he wouldn't know Arthur's name.

He scanned the road carefully but saw no signs of life. Good. He'd walk to the porch, trying to savor the shade from the trees, then set the box down and go.

A slight breeze blew on his bared skin as he walked. Ah, that was a thousand percent better already. He began to smile, feeling more optimistic, knowing he'd get through the rest of the day safely. Up three steps, into the shade of the portico, and Arthur gently reached the box down to set it on the porch.

Someone ran out of the house and slammed into him; he stumbled backwards, but kept his footing.

"Uh? What the fuck?" the newcomer asked.

Arthur straightened.

He looked at the young man who had barreled into him.

And Arthur Kirkland knew in that split second that he could no longer deny his own sexuality, when there were men like this walking the earth. He felt himself growing even warmer, felt his heart pounding. He was also quite aware of his sticky, shirtless state. Blast!

The newcomer – wearing only swim trunks and holding an armful of gear – stared back at him in panic, his face also reddening. The young man's hair was dark, glinting with chestnut, his eyes a liquid amber. "What the hell are you doing, bastard?" he growled, his deep voice thickly Italian, rich and sensuous.

"S-sorry." The Brit cleared his throat and tried to focus. "I'm from Fedex. Just delivering this package." He pointed to the box on the ground, then bent to scoop it up again. "Are you Julius Vargas?" He desperately wanted to know the other man's name.

"No, dammit. Th-that's my grandfather. I can, can take the box, though." He grabbed it and ducked back into the house with all his other things, slamming the door.

Arthur stared for five seconds, realized the foul-mouthed grandson might be staring at him through the peephole, and fled in desperation to the sanctuary of the truck, to close out his list of today's deliveries.

…

Inside the house, the brunet stood with his back pressed against the front door, his heart still pounding, still holding his beach towel, sunglasses and novel. He'd been planning to sunbathe in the side yard, and had had nothing at all on his mind when he'd opened the front door and bumped into the man standing there.

With no fucking shirt! Wasn't Fedex supposed to police that kind of behavior? How damn embarrassing. Anybody would be scared by some perverted shit like that.

Lovino (for that was the young Italian's name) stood where he was, until he felt his heart rate return to normal. Dammit, he hated being scared by strangers. He let the beach things slip from his grasp to land on the polished birch floor, and gripped the box tightly in both hands, staring at it without really seeing it. That blond bastard –

Then he made a snap decision, turning and yanking the front door open. Yes, the delivery truck was still in the driveway. Grinding his teeth, mastering his fear and trying to ignore the fact that he had no shirt on either, Lovino stalked up to the driver's side as angrily as he could.

"Er? Yes?" The deliveryman sounded bewildered.

"He – he changed his mind. D-doesn't want the package any longer. You – you can return it, right?" He shoved the box up to the driver's window, trying not to stare at that blond hair, those green eyes...

"Yes, of course I can." The blond took the box. W-was he staring back at Lovino? Dammit, he really should have put a shirt on. But then the truck might have been gone! "Just wait, though," the English voice broke into his panicked thoughts. He fiddled on the seat and handed Lovino a little device like a skinny laptop. "I need a signature."

"Uh?" Lovino panicked. Shit, he hadn't thought about that, and now the bastard had the box in the truck! Should he ask for it back? No, he'd look like a total ass if he did that. Ah, he'd just sign the fucking thing. He could sweet-talk his way out of it, if Grandpa got pissed off about the missing box. He took the machine and signed it, handing it back quickly. "Okay?" he growled. And then, before he could stop himself: "Why the fuck aren't you wearing a goddamn shirt?"

The blond's eyes widened and he snapped back, "Have you _been_ outside today? It's bloody ninety-seven degrees out here and I've got no air conditioning!" Then he checked the truck's console. "Ninety-eight, now," he said, in a slightly more normal voice.

"Oh." Lovino blinked. Yeah, it was pretty fucking hot out here. "You don't have air conditioning in this damn truck?" he blurted out. Fedex was a bunch of cheap-ass bastards!

"I do, ordinarily," the Brit replied in a suffering tone. "It broke yesterday and they haven't had a chance to repair it." He paused, still staring down at the brunet. "Is that all? I need to get the package back to the depot."

But Lovino hadn't heard that. "Would you like a drink of something cold? Lemonade or some shit like that?" Dammit, he could feel himself blushing like an idiot. The fact that he had to crane his neck to look up at the damn beautiful sweating bastard was an extra annoyance.

The green eyes opened wide. "Oh. Yes, _please_," he said, sounding much more sincere this time. "I've been dreaming of cold drinks all day."

Well, what the fuck; Lovino had asked, so now he had to follow through. "C-come into the house. We can see what's in the fridge." Without looking he led the way back inside, listening to the truck door slam.

…

_I've always wanted to get America and Turkey together. Pfft._


	2. Chapter 2

"Wait," Arthur called out, as the Italian held the door open and he hurried to catch up. "I – I'm not permitted to go inside private homes. It's a company rule." But he could feel the cooler interior air billowing out to meet him, and it felt so good already –

"Uh. Y-yeah, I kind of get that." Now the other chap looked a bit nervous. "Um, if – if you want to wait here, I'll bring some iced tea or whatever? I'll leave the door open so you can get some cooler air." He smirked just a bit.

Arthur nodded politely but couldn't fight his grin. "Thank you. That's clever. I'll wait right here gladly." He stepped slightly back, unthreateningly, and the brunet hurried off towards his kitchen.

While he was gone, the Brit stepped closer to the door again, reveling in the touch of the fresh air against his skin, rotating in place to feel that relief all over. Guess this sharp-tongued git wasn't so bad after all. He ruffled up his hair to get some cool air on his sweaty scalp.

The Italian hurried back with the tea, a glass for each of them. "Here you go. We didn't have lemonade."

"Thank you." Arthur took the glass. "Anything's fine, at this point."

The two stood sipping tea in silence; the deliveryman still felt a bit stupid from the heat, so he didn't try to make any conversation. Periodically he pressed the cold glass to his forehead, or his temples. Arthur did wish he'd kept his bloody shirt on, though. It felt very shameless to be standing here next to this young man without it.

He sneaked another peek. The Italian was flicking tiny glances at him, then looking away. This made Arthur a bit uncomfortable. He drained the rest of the iced tea quickly and took the ice cubes into his mouth, crunching them with delight. "Thanks again," he said, handing the empty glass back. "You may have just saved my life."

"No problem. I – I hope your day gets better?"

"Bound to, once I get out of this bloody truck and into my apartment. See you later," he replied automatically, and then bit his lip, because he probably wouldn't see the Italian again.

But his companion grinned at him and toasted him with an empty tea glass. "See you later, bastard."

Arthur walked to the truck, self-conscious because he felt the other man's eyes on him, but managed a casual wave as he drove off, wondering why the guy thought he was a bastard.

He spent the drive back to the depot completely ignoring the heat, lost in an endless whirl of thought. By the time he'd returned the truck and ridden his bike home through the screaming traffic and the hot, dusty air, he was so confused and torn from thinking and re-thinking that he had a throbbing headache. Blearily, he telephoned Lili and complained of his day and the headache, intending to cancel, but she broke off their date herself, giving him instructions on how best to take care of himself. Arthur promised to take the painkillers, to lie in a darkened room, and then he hung up. After which he took the promised cool shower and medicine and went to bed. Today's events continued to swirl around and around in his head, however, preventing nurturing sleep.

On the whole, today had actually been rather terrifying. If he hadn't felt so dopey from the heat, he would have grasped that at the time. To have opened that mental door and admitted that he might be gay – _might be_, he told himself sternly – that was a big enough jolt in itself, when he'd been driving in the truck and thinking of Lili. However, maybe that simply meant he was becoming more mature, or relaxed, or something, able to consider such an unusual thought without fear. In and of itself that wasn't so scary. He could have taken his time, examined his thoughts, taken her out on the date, and figured things out at his leisure later.

No, it was that shock he'd felt upon seeing the brunet that really threw him. Was the Italian really that attractive? Or was it simply because Arthur's mind had already been going down that path?

So he rolled over onto his stomach, headache forgotten, and forced himself to think about the unnamed young man. Here in his cool apartment, with the curtains drawn against the heat and in the softness of his bed, he finally felt himself begin to relax. He replayed the entire day: from his musings about Lili and sexuality, up to the point where he'd left the Italian – over and over and over.

He confirmed with himself that he didn't want to date Lili any longer; Arthur got such little joy from their time together that it seemed fairly pointless. How to make that clear to her? On the one hand, it was gentlemanly to break off something like that officially, by calling and talking to her about things, rather than just ignoring her. But on the other hand, sometimes he went two weeks without even calling her, and then they'd go on a date. So maybe if he just let it slide –

Ah, no. He really ought to phone her at the very least. Maybe tomorrow he'd take her out for lunch somewhere and talk about it. Maybe she was unhappy with the relationship, too? She'd seemed awfully content to cancel their date. Yes. Tomorrow he'd telephone her, take her out somewhere nice, and try to have a heart-to-heart with her.

That settled, eventually his headache began to fade. Feeling physically better, and more optimistic, Arthur eventually concluded that the heat of the day had befuddled him, and that he'd read too much bloody drama into the situation. He was just a bloke, thinking about sex, basically. Just because the brunet had been shirtless and had nicely given him some iced tea didn't mean Arthur was attracted to him, and didn't mean at all that Arthur was gay.

Whew. He was glad he'd settled that! Rolling over, nestling deeper under the cool cotton sheets, he smiled, awarding himself a mental pat on the back, and finally went to sleep. The last thing he remembered was wondering why that git had a silly hair curl sticking out to the side.

…

In the morning Arthur's headache was worse, but that was easy to figure out. All night long that gorgeous Italian wanker had featured in his dreams! Argh. And he was nervous about breaking things off with Lili. One of these problems would have been bad enough, but both together? His head was pounding. He took more ibuprofen and another shower and brewed a pot of tea. That would help.

He didn't want to admit to himself how strongly he desired Julius Vargas' grandson. What if they met again? How could he behave properly? Arthur just knew he'd act like some idiot with his first crush, bumbling and inept. If the brunet didn't welcome his advances – no matter how clumsy they were – it could lead to real trouble, maybe even trouble at work, if the Italian was the manipulative type. If he telephoned the office and complained of improper conduct from an employee.

"Argh!" He smacked the kitchen countertop and telephoned Lili to get his mind off this. She was happy to hear that his headache had gone away last night (he didn't tell her it had reoccurred this morning), and amenable to a lunch date. They made the arrangements and he rang off, finishing the pot of tea.

…

All the way to his lunch date Arthur worried and fretted. He had no real excuse to break this off. Nothing except that he wasn't happy about their relationship (such as it was). How to get this across without sounding like a total selfish dick?

But she greeted him nicely, and they sat in the cool restaurant together. Arthur felt as though the sense of the restaurant's air conditioning was bracing him, giving him clarity and the strength to get through the meal.

Haltingly, he explained his thoughts. Making him more nervous was the fact that Lili merely smiled and nodded in agreement until he'd finished his rambling, disjoint explanation. "I understand," said she, patting his hand kindly. "I too have sometimes felt that the spark is missing."

Relieved and frankly amazed, Arthur grinned. "I'm not certain I'd be spark-inspiring for anyone. I don't think I'm that kind of a chap."

"You've been such a gentleman to me," her soft voice said happily. "I'm sure you'll find someone who suits you better."

Of course the vision of the Italian git came into his head, and he blushed, and sipped iced tea to hide his panic. "Thank you." After finishing the tea, he remembered to add, "I hope you find someone too."

Lili smiled awkwardly and blushed in turn. "I – I think that I have," she murmured. "But I did not want to go on a date with him until I had settled the situation with you. I – if you hadn't wanted to discuss this today, I would have."

Arthur was stunned. Stunned! She'd wanted to break it off? He felt slightly insulted.

Eh. It didn't matter. They were through.

They spent the rest of the meal discussing this and that, and parted amiably, with pecks on the cheek and good wishes for the future. Arthur watched her drive off in her little blue Miata and grinned. That had gone much more easily than he'd expected.

Now he was at a loose end. What to do? Shop? Sleep? He mounted his bicycle and rode off, letting his thoughts wander, and was unsurprised to end up at his apartment. Ah, well. He could get some more rest, and maybe – maybe tomorrow he'd go for a longer bike ride, maybe along his delivery route or something. He felt his face burning as he locked up the bike, and pushed that thought right out of his head. If he did ride tomorrow, he'd go downtown and do something fun. Not spend his day riding all over streets he saw every day while working!

Inside the house, more painkillers, yet another shower, and back into bed. Arthur was determined to get over this wimpy headache situation by Monday. He didn't want to take a sick day at all. Didn't want to miss a thing on his delivery route.


	3. Chapter 3

_"Fratello,_ are you all right?"

"I'm perfectly fine, dammit!" Lovino reached for his wine glass and drank deeply, earning a raised eyebrow from his grandfather and a gasp from his little brother. His nosy little brother. The three sat at their traditional Friday evening family dinner, and Lovino was trying very hard to keep a lid on his irritation. But he probably wasn't doing a very good job. He scowled at the plate and drank some more.

"Are you going out tonight?" his grandfather asked.

Hah. Lovino always went out on the weekends. Had to get away from all this family-oriented bullshit. But – but this weekend – "I don't think so," he muttered. "I – I have some stuff to do."

"Ve," his little brother Feliciano said in his high, soft voice, "when are you going to get some actual fish?"

"Shut up, dammit."

Feliciano shut up.

A few minutes of strained silence prefaced their grandfather's next question. "By the way, boys, has either of you taken delivery of a package?"

Both of them looked at him, puzzled. "Lovi's been getting packages all the time, Grandpa."

"I didn't mean that. I was expecting a delivery last week and haven't seen it yet. Did one of you take it and put it somewhere unusual? Maybe with your fish things, Lovino?"

It was true that he had been receiving a lot of packages lately. He thought about this. Had anything weird been in his – oh, _shit._ It was the package from that hot day, wasn't it? He'd given it back to the Fedex bastard, and now Grandpa wanted to know where the hell it was. "No idea," he mumbled, face aflame. "All the boxes I took recently were for my fish project," he went on more confidently. "I've opened them all and didn't find anything I hadn't ordered."

"Hm. Well, I'll look online and see if the company has any information about it. Maybe it got damaged or lost in transit." Grandpa drank some wine and scribbled a little note about this on the pad he always kept at the table; Lovino kept his head down and shoveled food into his mouth so he wouldn't have to answer any more fucking questions.

He managed to get through the rest of his meal with as little interaction as possible, and then escaped to his big, bright bedroom. There, he flopped down on the bed, muttering Italian curses under his breath, staring at his magnificent fish tank. His magnificent, well-equipped, expensive, fancy and _empty_ fish tank.

On and off for months, he'd been thinking he needed some kind of hobby, something to take the edge off his boredom during the day, when Grandpa was at the office and Feli at his university classes. Lovino was a voracious reader, and he'd been blowing all his allowance on e-books. But he read so quickly that he was spending hundreds of dollars a week, lazing around reading, and this had finally reached the boredom stage. He needed something new, but hadn't quite settled on anything. Crafts felt like bullshit, and sports sucked. What could he do?

Two weeks ago – it had been on that blistering hot day, after a dip in their backyard pool – he'd had the idea to set up a fancy fish tank, and learn about raising pretty fish, maybe koi or something. They always looked so striking. A fish wouldn't be a very demanding pet, of course. No taking the stupid thing for walks (especially during the hot weather recently), or scooping poop out of a litter box, or any of that shit. (He'd snorted at this inadvertent joke.) Yes, a fish, or multiple fish, would be interesting and decorative, and would give him something to focus on other than the same old books.

Therefore, after a few days of research, he'd begun placing orders with online fish supply sites. Lovino wanted to – to test out all these online shops and see how they did with customer service, yes, and so instead of placing one big order with one store, he'd placed about twenty, from small shops, collecting all the accoutrements for his tanks before buying any actual fish.

In the next two weeks, packages had begun to be delivered to him. Lots and lots of little packages of fish-related items: filters, food, gravel, a heater, rocks, lights, greenery, an aquarium from one store, its stand from another. Every day, for two weeks, Lovino had stayed home to receive packages, rather than running errands or finding time to hang out with his busy friends. Every day, for two weeks, he'd camped out in the front room with a pitcher of iced tea and his book on ichthyology, reading and waiting impatiently for the deliveryman to bring him his items. And every goddamn day, for two fucking weeks, UPS, the postman, Ontrac and even DHL had shown up with a box, or multiple boxes! Bastards.

He felt like a caged animal. Other than errands his grandfather had insisted on, Lovino hadn't left the house in fourteen days! He had to get out, no matter what he'd told his family. He had to get out of this damn house and stop thinking about fucking deliveries.

Having made this decision, he felt immeasurably better. He got up, put his shoes on, and went out into the hot, still evening.

He did like this quiet, rich neighborhood for walking and thinking. From prior experience he knew his usual path was about three miles, and he could automatically wander, staying on the sidewalks, without having to pay too much attention to his surroundings. At this time of night, everyone was home from work, and stupid kids were inside for the evening. The air had begun to cool, and it was peaceful. Lovino walked and thought, thought and walked, thinking about fucking fish and stupid hobbies and trying very hard not to let the idea of bastard deliverymen into his head.

After two hours he realized he'd walked his circuit nearly three times, faster and faster each time. This was some kind of record! He stopped, looked around and decided to head for home. He'd reached an important decision about the damn fish project.

This project was asinine. He didn't have the mental temperament to sit around and babysit fancy fish all day! He'd just end up reading while he sat around, anyway. Whatever had possessed him to think of it? Well, luckily, he hadn't actually bought the fish. The conclusion he'd reached during his walk was to abandon the fish project and keep looking for something else.

Good thing today was Friday. Lovino would have all weekend to re-pack the things into the shipping boxes, to fill out return forms, and all that shit.

But, he considered, it would be a huge pain in the ass to cart all that stuff to the post office. So he had decided to open an account with a shipping service, who would come to the house and pick up all the boxes. Then he could stay home on only one day, probably Monday, have everything picked up, and forget about the damn fish! Totally efficient and logical, right?

Yeah, Feliciano would be upset, but who the hell cared? He just wanted to coo over the fish like an idiot.

Lovino stepped into the foyer and kicked off his shoes, running up to his room to begin all the return processes. He felt much more optimistic already. Once the deliveryman showed up to get the packages, everything would be much better.


	4. Chapter 4

_Thanks to everyone who's reading and reviewing!_

…

Arthur awoke on Monday, showered, dressed; he had nothing particular planned except to get through his work day. Breaking up with Lili had helped him a little; he could do whatever he felt like after work, or even stop in the middle of the day to do something, as long as he didn't mind working late. Though he was slightly irritated at one little thing. There had been no more deliveries to Julius Vargas' house, and none, in fact, in that entire development.

This is not to say that Arthur hadn't detoured past that house several times in the last two weeks, cap pulled down low, sunglasses on for anonymity, though no one had been visible on the property.

But he wouldn't let himself think about that right now. He was on training duty today, with a new employee named Francis. They'd met briefly on Friday, and he wasn't in the mood to deal with this French git, but he'd have to do it. Tucking in his polo shirt and slipping into his boots, he ran to his bike, and hurried to work.

…

He was a wreck all morning. They were on pickup duty at first – meaning they only had to make large pickups at certain customer sites, usually small shops and offices that didn't always have a delivery each day. This wasn't such a problem. No, the problem was that the last stop on the list was the Vargas residence. For a very large number of packages. Arthur tuned out the loquacious Francis for several hours as he drove, scanned and loaded packages, and stopped off for coffee just before heading to that last site.

"You're not too chatty, are you, _mon ami_?" Francis sipped a latte, licking the foam from his lips and staring out the coffee shop window.

"Look, this is America; they speak English here. Stop spouting that frog talk and act like a local." Yes, Arthur knew this was rude, considering they'd just met last week, but blast! This bearded bloke simply would not shut up.

"Oh, don't be such a cranky pants." The Frenchman tossed his long blond hair artistically before stroking his beard stubble. "Are you always like this?"

"Yes."

"_Bien,_ I will do my best to cheer you up and get you to talk to me."

"I don't need cheering up!" Arthur thundered, to the astonishment of everyone inside Starbucks. In a calmer voice, he explained with sarcastic patience, "I merely want you to stop talking. To me." He needed to get into a pleasant mental zone before they reached the Vargas house. It would have been bad enough to approach that house on his own, but having to deal with this babbling batrachian intensified the problem a hundredfold. "I need to think."

"You need to _relax_. Perhaps I can help you with that?" The Frenchman winked at him; infuriated and embarrassed (because the wanker really was rather attractive), Arthur threw the remains of his iced latte into Francis' face. But of course there was a lid on the cup, so nothing happened. Francis merely laughed at this.

"Oh, shut it. Let's get moving. We only have this one pickup before going back to the depot and getting our afternoon deliveries." He rose and stuffed the cup into the trash angrily.

"Fine. Do you know where we are going next? It's a private home, is it not?" Francis held the door for him as they exited.

"I'll drive. Just get in and clam up that froggy mouth of yours. I know the place."

Miraculously, the froggy mouth stayed shut. Arthur was able to consider which cool, suave phrases he'd use with the grandson, assuming that young man was at home. But the presence of this French wanker made him very, very nervous. Even if he could remember all the cool, suave phrases, even if the grandson didn't fluster him too much, maybe he'd be too tongue-tied to speak to him in front of Francis.

On the other hand, maybe there was some other git in that house who needed to ship something. It wasn't Julius' name on the manifest.

Well, but, Arthur was a professional. He'd do the job that needed doing, and if he caught a glimpse of his gorgeous Italian, that would be like icing on the cake. He turned into the driveway of the so-familiar home and put on the parking brake.

...

_All this stuff about how FedEx operates - I'm just making it up. I have no real knowledge of the inner workings of that company._


	5. Chapter 5

_The last chapter was really short, so this one kind of makes up for it._

...

Lovino felt _great_ on Monday morning. After extensive analysis of all the delivery firms available, he'd eventually chosen FedEx for his personal shipping needs, and everything was boxed up and ready to go back. The online form had said the packages could be left on the porch, but he didn't feel comfortable with that. What if some other bastard drove up and stole them all? He'd be out thousands of dollars! So he kept them in the foyer and waited on the loveseat, drinking coffee, for the driver to pick them up. He'd dressed carefully this morning, in a red polo and jean shorts, not for any real reason except that he was tired of dressing like a slob. Every now and then he'd panic a little, and look out the window, and then settle down when he realized no truck was in sight. He knew the driver would ring the doorbell, but he still wanted to be prepared for the conversation that would ensue.

Near noon he'd fallen into a little doze, book slipping from his grip, when the doorbell rang. Lovino jumped up so fast that the book threatened to fall to the floor, but he caught it in time and slapped it down on the cushions before dancing around the stacked boxes and hurrying to answer the door, checking his hair quickly in the hall mirror on the way. He caught a glimpse of blond hair outside the small window and tried to chase the insane grin from his face before opening the door.

"Jesus fucking Christ!" he blurted out, in some bearded bastard's face, grin totally forgotten.

_"Excusez-moi?"_ the guy said. But Lovino didn't even register this, because he thought he saw a movement at the back of the truck. His heart skipped a beat and he needed to grip the door jamb. He'd been right; seconds later the – the goddamn English bastard walked around towards the steps. For some reason Lovino had expected him to be shirtless again, but today was a much crisper day, and the blond was neatly dressed in the blue polo and shorts of the FedEx uniform, with a slight breeze lifting his hair this way and that. Lovino tried to take deep breaths and calm down enough to deal with this package pickup in a professional way. He continued to ignore the French guy, until the Englishman reached the porch.

"Good morning," the bastard said in his elegant voice, with a little smile. His face was quite pink. "Or afternoon, I suppose." He cleared his throat.

Lovino was still fighting to be stern. "H-hi," he said brusquely, turning his head at the last second to include the other guy in the greeting.

"I'm training Francis today, so I'll be carrying your parcels to the truck while he takes care of the paperwork."

"My shit's all inside here. Are you allowed to come in to help get it, or should I bring it to the porch?" Lovino stood back and gestured at the stack of boxes.

"You need to bring them to the door," the Brit said apologetically.

Oh, right. Not allowed inside private homes. Lovino wondered if he might have come in, if the French idiot (who kept winking and tossing his fucking hair around like a supermodel) wasn't here. But – "No problem." They had to get the work done before anything else. He hurried to pick up some boxes and bring them to the blond; the French bastard started fiddling with the signature thing and scanning each box as it passed. Lovino felt like an idiot, afraid to drop something, and this Francis should have been the one to carry the stupid boxes to the truck anyway, dammit.

He and the Englishman worked together to get the boxes out of the house. The Italian checked their nametags; Francis, yes, and the – the other guy was named Arthur. That was such an English name, he thought with a suppressed smile. Like King Arthur.

At that he felt himself blushing and hurried back to the biggest box. "This one's an aquarium," he told the other two. "Might take all of us to carry so it doesn't get dropped. I can shift it to the door but might need your help lifting it out." Hah. It had needed Grandpa's strength to get it upstairs to Lovino's bedroom, and then back down again after he'd re-boxed it. _That_ had been an awkward conversation! Lovino was too fucking weak, and maybe needed to do something about that. Start going to a fucking gym or something.

So all three of them worked to carry this last big box to the back of the truck. He struggled to hold his side of the box, so that nobody would understand just how weak he was. Halfway there, he glanced up, met those green eyes accidentally, and stumbled, but luckily the French bastard was bearing the heaviest load, and Lovino was able to recover. Dammit. He really needed to pay attention! Even with his generous allowance, he could not afford to eat the cost of a broken aquarium.

They did make it to the truck with no further problems. He saw that it was full of other packages, not just his own. "Lot of work today?" he tried to ask in an offhand way, trying not to catch anyone's eye. He had to say _something._

Unfortunately it was Francis who answered. "Not so bad. But we have to take this truckload back to the depot and empty it before going out on our deliveries again."

"Huh," Lovino responded, not really caring.

Arthur came around the side of the truck with the signature machine. "Did Francis have you sign?"

"No." Lovino took the machine and signed, feeling like a pro. "Thank you for – uh – well, just, thank you!" He scowled at the machine, at Francis; he was pissed off about the French bastard standing by, because he wanted to introduce himself but felt too idiotic to do it. He thrust the machine back into the Brit's hands.

"Thanks. Get in, Francis; I'll drive." He glanced quickly down at the machine while Francis prepared to get in the passenger side of the truck. "Lovino?" he asked quietly. "Different."

"Pfft. Yeah." The brunet tried again not to stare. Now that they were here face-to-face, without fucking Francis around, he couldn't think of anything to say!

But the blond broke the awkward silence. "M-my name is Arthur."

"Nice to meet you." Lovino finally looked into his eyes and smiled, just a little. "Thanks for the package pickup, too."

"I suppose, since you have an account now, we might be seeing more of you?" And then Arthur bit his lip and dropped his gaze, as if he was embarrassed.

Lovino relaxed a little. God, this bastard was adorable. Why hadn't he just admitted it two weeks ago instead of going through all the Project Fish bullshit? "I hope so."

Before he could speak again, Francis leaned out the window and hollered to Arthur to hurry up.

"Er. I'm so sorry. I'll talk to you later," the blond said, scurrying towards the driver's side with the machine.

"See you soon!" Lovino stood in the driveway, waving, until long after the truck had gone. Dammit, he felt _great_. He knew getting rid of all that fish crap had been the right decision. Maybe he'd go for a swim.

Upstairs, as he changed into his trunks, he thought about Arthur's parting words. That they might be seeing more of each other, because he had a FedEx account. Well, shit, at the moment he had nothing more to ship.

Lovino hurried down to the backyard pool, which was beautiful, shaded a little by the trees, and had a nice long view out over the golf course. After diving in and getting used to the water temperature, he started to think about this some more. How could he arrange more package pickups?

His rational mind, of course, knew that it was unlikely he'd actually get anywhere with the blond. What were the chances that Arthur was (a) gay, (b) available, and (c) interested? Pfft. But a man can dream, can't he? Lovino floated on his back and revisited that moment when Arthur had walked up to the porch, his hair all fluffy in the breeze.

No. He wouldn't let himself get carried away; he'd just be friendly, and that would be that.

But maybe there was a way to arrange more package pickups. The easy way to do this would be to start selling something that he had to ship out. What the fuck could he sell? If he picked something interesting, it might help fill the void in his days by giving him a project, _and_ result in more FedEx pickups, _and_ it might even make him some money! Hmm. What to do? Maybe he'd ask Grandpa and Feli at dinner tonight. Maybe one of them would have an idea. He continued to float on his back, grinning, and dreaming of the golden blond Arthur, until it was time to shower and dress for dinner.

…

By contrast the Brit was a mess again, mostly because he was irritated at the garrulous Francis. He snarled and growled inarticulately in response to Francis' constant vague musings on art, life, and love. How could he have been so stupid in front of Lovino Vargas? (Though he was glad to know the Italian's name, of course.)

Naturally he hadn't planned on saying anything _too_ compromising. He still wasn't even sure how he felt about all this. But he'd hoped that a pleasant, easy exchange between the two of them would have assisted him to calm down and get on with his life. Instead, more drama, more turmoil in his heart; he desperately wanted to go back to the Vargas house, and on the other hand, he couldn't possibly deal with that.

Somehow they managed to get the day's work done, and it wasn't until later – when Arthur was unlocking his bicycle and Francis heading for his car – that the Frenchman smirked at him. "So…young _Monsieur_ Vargas is a friend of yours?" he asked slyly.

"Shut up about him," Arthur snapped back. "But yes. He is a friend." At least Arthur hoped he was a friend. Hoped he would _be_ a friend someday. Whatever! "Just go home!" he yelled out, ignoring the froggy snickers behind him and riding away as fast as he could.

The new "shower – bed – nap" routine seemed to be working well for him, so once he got home he did it again (with some painkillers, just in case the idea of Francis started to creep into his head). He lay back on the bed and forced – yes, _forced_ – himself to think about Lovino Vargas.

The git had certainly been friendlier today; Arthur didn't even remember hearing the word "bastard." Or maybe L-Lovino no longer considered him a bastard? In fact his language had been quite moderate overall. This may have been due to Francis' presence, though. Arthur himself usually watched his language in front of strangers.

Then again, Lovino and Arthur were pretty much strangers to each other.

Blast. Why did he have to lie here and analyze everything? It wasn't like he could figure anything out. Arthur was still inclined to treat this new "what-if" sexual thing as an aberration, something that would go away in time. But how could it, if every time he made a delivery to that house he was thrown into this confusion?

In fact, every time he got anywhere remotely near that neighborhood, he was thrown into this confusion. Was there some way to deal with it?

Naked in the bed, it did occur to him to pleasure himself and try to fantasize about Lovino, but he put the lid on that idea right away. What if he really enjoyed it? What the bloody hell would happen next time he made a delivery? His brain would probably explode from trying to repress this memory.

Of course the real reason, the one he barely admitted to himself, was that he was afraid of _failure._ What if he couldn't get excited about the idea? That would certainly kill the confusion, but a little kernel in Arthur's heart wanted to leave it nebulous. Wanted to find out the normal way, instead of forcing himself into this.

So he rolled over once more and tried to go to sleep. He was afraid he'd end up dreaming of Lovino all night again. And he was equally afraid that he would not. "Blast!" he yelled out, smashing a pillow over his face and trying to think of something innocuous.

Golf. Yeah, that'd work. Nothing sexy about golf.

Five minutes later Arthur rolled out of bed with a snarl and padded to the tiny kitchen to brew some tea. Lovino's house was near the golf club.

He settled down while drinking the tea. "Fine," he muttered, going to check his email. While there, he caught himself looking at aerial maps of Lovino's neighborhood.

"It's a bloody crush, that's all," he said aloud, shutting down the PC and doing the washing-up. "A few more deliveries and this will burn off and I can get back to normal." Or, he told himself, if it didn't, he could request a different delivery route.

But that bothered him too. He'd hate to think of bloody Francis getting to talk to Lovino all the time, while he was delivering things across town!

Arthur told himself this would all blow over soon, and he could start looking for a new girlfriend.

He almost believed it, too.

…


	6. Chapter 6

On Wednesday (after constant daydreaming, to the point where his grandfather had temporarily given up on coherent conversation) Lovino answered the phone when it rang. It was his old friend Mathias. "Come out with us tonight. Gilbert's got a new convertible and wants to go pick up chicks."

Lovino snorted. "He loves the chicks. Too bad they think he's a fucking idiot. But, sure, I'll go. Pick me up?"

"Sure. See you in an hour."

So, the albino bastard had a new car? It was a great night for riding around in a convertible. If Lovino knew his friends (and he most assuredly did), they'd end up cruising slowly around city streets looking for a couple of lone girls stupid enough to take a ride with total strangers. Gilbert, who looked like a maniac even when he was sitting still, would scare them away with his over-the-top behavior, and Mathias would try to pester him and Lovino into giving up and going drinking somewhere. The Italian usually sat scowling in the back seat. But most likely, no girls would be interested, or be daring-slash-clueless enough. An hour later the three of them would all be in some dive, drinking vodka tonics and bullshitting all night.

But in a convertible, well, Gilbert might just have a little more luck. Lovino wondered what kind it was. It couldn't be a two-seater or they wouldn't have room for him (or, in fact, any _chicks_). He snorted. He really needed to teach those two to be more respectful of girls, even though he didn't like them, ever since the tenth grade when that bitch Natalia had made a fool of him in front of everyone.

He didn't worry too much that they'd pick up a few girls and leave him awkward and pissed off. Lovino could manipulate those two dumb idiots. If any girls really showed signs of joining them, he'd guilt-trip his friends into driving on without them. Or maybe he'd get to chauffeur them all around in the new convertible while they all fucked around in the back seat, the damn horny bastards.

The three of them had been best friends for years. Mathias and Gilbert knew he liked boys, and they wouldn't pressure him into anything. They'd been walking on eggshells with him ever since he'd slunk back from the university anyway.

He reluctantly turned his thoughts away from that painful part of his past and got up to put on something a little edgier, and suited for city cruising. Who the hell could tell? Maybe Arthur (he smiled) would be out and about in the city!

While he dressed Lovino gave himself the same little reality lecture he'd been giving himself all week. He had to stop assuming that every bastard he met would be ripe for the plucking! Dammit, that's what had gotten him into trouble with Kiku. He turned his mind fiercely away from those memories. That was not something worth revisiting. Not anymore.

So, he told himself, even if he _did_ see Arthur tonight, which was highly unlikely, he would just greet the man pleasantly, and make a little polite conversation.

Ah, but when he got home alone to his bed, he could think about whatever he wanted, couldn't he? Lovino grinned maniacally and pelted down the stairs to the front door.

…

As predicted, no luck with _chicks_; within the hour they were seated in one of their favorite dumps, getting hammered. "So, listen, bastards. I need some help. Give me your ideas." Feli and Grandpa had been totally useless in this respect; Feli had suggested selling plush toys, for Christ's sake, and Grandpa had merely said that Lovino needed to choose something himself.

"Hit me," Mathias laughed, knocking back his drink.

"Right. Well, I – I want to go into business, earn a little money, but I don't know what to do."

"Awesome!" Gilbert leapt out of his seat; Mathias yanked on his sleeve and he plopped back down. "No, seriously, listen. I was on a teambuilding thing for work last week, and we did this amazing zip wire course. _Amazing._ I was thinking I'd like to start one of those. Everybody loves it, and corporations would pay a ton to bring their people there for teambuilding!" He sat back and beamed. He was drinking Coke, because he didn't want to abandon his fancy new car downtown and have to take a cab later.

Both his friends rolled their eyes, but for different reasons. Mathias spoke first. "If there's already a zip line place in the area, why would they want ours?"

"And anyway, I didn't mean you two idiots would go into business with me!" Lovino was fuming. This was completely off the path of the fucking discussion! "I want to sell some shit using my house as an office. An online shop. But I can't think of anything to sell."

"Did you talk to your family about it?" Ever reasonable, Mathias asked this.

"Fuck, yes, but they didn't give me any ideas. Come on, help me think." Even if they kept coming up with moronic suggestions, it might make him think about the way to proceed.

"I don't know why you _wouldn't_ want to go into business with us," the albino pouted. "We're awesome, and we always have great ideas when we're together. All three of us. Right? Right!" He downed his soda and tried to hug Lovino; dammit, the bastard was always so fucking grabby when he was drinking, even if he wasn't drunk. Good thing Lovino wasn't interested in him.

This made him wonder what Arthur was doing tonight.

But then Mathias burped and patted Lovino on the back, distracting him. "You know it's true. We do have awesome ideas."

"Well?" he grumped. "Give me a fucking awesome idea. Help me think of some shit to sell that people will want." Irritated at himself for bringing up the topic, he waved at the waitress for another round.

"Guns."

"Gilbert, you are the stupidest – "

Mathias covered Lovino's mouth with a hand wet with condensation. "Stop. Why would that be bad?"

"Permits? Regulations? What if some bastard bought a gun from me and killed somebody with it? I don't want to deal with all that! I just want to resell something people will want." He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

They all fell silent, thinking about this. "It has to be a consumable," the Dane eventually announced.

"A what? What?" Gilbert asked, poking him in the bicep.

"Consumable! Something that people will run out of fairly quickly."

"They _consume_ it, stupid," Lovino added. Hmm. That was a very good point.

"Why, though?" Gilbert scratched his head. "Why couldn't it be something like guns? _Like_ guns, you'll notice I said. Something like supplies for whitewater rafting, or horseback riding?"

"Take a deep breath and think, you albino moron. How many fucking saddles does a person buy?"

"Uh? Well, one, I guess, or one for every horse maybe?"

"Yeah? Yeah. So, I sell a saddle. Big fucking deal. With a consumable, like, let's say goddamn chocolate bars, people buy them and eat them, and then – no more chocolate. They have to come buy more, and consume it."

"That's the way to go," Mathias agreed. "We can come up with something, though."

For a few moments he and Lovino tossed around idiotic suggestions – fancy chocolate bars, handmade soap, yarn – while Gilbert remained uncharacteristically silent. Then he suddenly erupted from his chair again. "I've got it! We can sell – "

"Bastard, what's all this 'we' shit? This is for _me_ to do." Angry now, Lovino slurped up the remains of his drink. "If it's all three of us, we'd have to sell three times as much crap, just to pay ourselves." What a moron.

"On the other hand," Mathias mused, "if – if – uh – if Gilbert and I kept our day jobs, we could plow more money into the business?"

Shit. Of course he would be hesitant to suggest this. They knew Lovino didn't have a job, and they knew why. Both of them now looked embarrassed, and Gilbert leaped up. "I've gotta take a leak," he announced. "Be right back."

They watched him run off. "Sorry," the blond said to his friend.

"Whatever. I'm not really serious about this damn idea anyway." Lovino rolled his eyes and drank the rest of Gilbert's Coke. "Let's change the fucking subject."

"Fine. Let's have a drinking contest."

"Gilbert's not drinking, dumbass."

"Well? You and I can still have a drinking contest." Mathias finished his drink and waved for more.

With a deep sigh, Lovino abandoned himself to the inevitable. "Fine, bastard. Fine."

…

By the time he got home Lovino was too drunk and pissed off to think about Arthur at all, or, in fact, anything other than stripping and falling into bed. Dammit, why did he ever listen to those bastards? _Why?_

_..._

_Mathias = Denmark _

_Gilbert = Prussia_

_Natalia = Belarus_

_Kiku = Japan_


	7. Chapter 7

Arthur had a pretty good week, though no more pickups or deliveries took him to the Vargas home. When Alfred phoned him on Friday night to go out, he thought he might as well. He hadn't seen him and Sadik for a long time, and while he knew the two of them were going to be crazy-loud, he didn't really care. He needed to get out and socialize and stop obsessing about the other shite. He dressed in shabby, comfortable clothing: an old, much-loved t-shirt, tatty black jeans with holes in them, and after much deliberation, a skull ring he'd purchased before leaving London. Last to go on were his comfortable boots – not the sturdy hiking style he wore for work, but a battered black pair that looked a lot more edgy.

Was he reading too much into his wardrobe choices? Bugger.

Soon he heard the blaring "oogah" horn of Alfred's car and ran outside, locking his apartment. "Hey, gits," he laughed to Sadik, who was leaning out the window.

"Hey, yourself, Artie! Get in!" the Turkish man thundered. With a grin Arthur slipped into the back seat.

"Alfred," he greeted his cousin.

"Man! It has been way too long, bro." The blond put the car in gear and drove off. "Burgers tonight?"

"Burgers are fine," Arthur sighed. It was always burgers. He'd love to find a fish and chips place around here, but there wasn't one. He knew, because he checked online every couple of weeks. That's what this town needed. A good fish and chips place. Fish and chips and Real Ale. But even if he found one, he'd bet he would never be able to talk Sadik and Alfred into eating there.

All the way to the burger joint, the three of them jabbered and caught up with each other. Arthur was surprised not to find himself more irritated, but then, it had been about six weeks since he'd suffered through a night with them. Probably by the end of tonight he'd feel just as annoyed as usual.

"So, man, what else is up?" After asking this, Alfred stuffed half a hamburger into his mouth, and Sadik laughed and punched him, making him choke. "Ow. Dude."

"Same old shite," the Brit laughed. "Work. More work. But it's not bad. Training, mostly. How about you two?" He ate and listened to Alfred's woes; his cousin worked in an office and was constantly droning about his management, his workload, and so on.

Alfred pouted. "You have it great, dude. You just park the truck and you're done for the night. Next week we're rolling out a new software release, and I'm going to be working late _all week._"

"Don't forget you make about three times as much money as I do. You have to do three times as much work."

"Yeah, I know there are tradeoffs. Sadik makes a lot of money but he has to travel a lot, which sucks. Though once in a while we manage to take vacation together, or I can take vacation and travel with him while he works. That's pretty cool."

"Would you rather be in an office, or doing what you do?" the Turk asked Arthur.

"What I do now, definitely," he replied, not even having to consider the question. "I'm out and about all day, no bloody managers hanging over my shoulder, getting fresh air and staying in shape from lifting boxes all day." He lifted imaginary barbells, making his friends laugh.

"Sometimes I think that's the way to go," Alfred agreed, stuffing fries into his mouth. "No stress, just a clearly-defined and easy job. I'd rather work in a retail store, though. How cool would it be to work in a liquor store?"

"Hah!" Sadik yelled. "Stupid! You don't get to sit around boozing it up in a liquor store. Plus you'd be accountable for every underage kid who slipped you a fake ID."

"Huh. You're right. Too much trouble." Alfred finished slurping up his milkshake and turned pleading eyes on Arthur. "Now, listen, Artie, and don't give me any lip. We want to go out after this. I really want you to go with us because we haven't seen you in so long, and I know you're going to balk, but pleeeeease?" He turned pouty puppy-dog eyes on his elder cousin. "We want to go to Tino's."

He had totally expected this; they had this discussion every single time the three of them went out together. Tino's was their favorite bar, a gay bar. Arthur had never _ever_ considered going in there before – in fact he'd practically kicked and screamed every time Alfred had suggested it. He would never go in there, he'd always said, and had always taken a bus back to his apartment each time before this. But he was still in a confused state this week, and he thought that going in there might help him open his mind more. He might feel right at home – which would certainly clarify things – or he might be on edge and awkward all night long. Either way, going there would help him think. So he sat still, with a slight fake frown on his face, one mocking eyebrow raised, and listened to both Alfred and Sadik spouting reassurances to him about the bar.

When they stopped talking he simply said "All right," in a lazy, bored voice.

"What? _What?_ You've got to be kidding me!" Alfred yelled, leaping out of the seat. "Why yes? Why now?"

"Shut it," he yawned, as if it didn't matter at all. "Are we going, or what?"

"Hell, yes!" Sadik jumped up too, grabbing Alfred by the arm. "Come on, before he changes his mind!"

Affecting indifference, but intensely curious, Arthur slouched out the door after them, hugging this secret glee to himself as he watched their confusion.

…

He walked through the door with a lot of anxiety. But mostly, he saw, as his eyes adjusted to the gloom, it was…normal. Blokes here and there chatted with each other, drinking; there were some pool tables, although no one was playing right now. Since the live band wouldn't be here for a while, music played from a sound system; a disco ball slowly threw its lozenges of light around the interior. Really, the only weird thing about the place was that there were no women present. Arthur had been quite fearful, expecting to see gits fondling each other's arses, or making out in the corners, or something else that would make him feel awkward. But there was none of that.

Not to say it wouldn't happen later, of course.

The three of them headed right to the bar. "I'm buying the first round. This is a historic night!" Alfred yelled, placing the order for three beers. "This is my cousin," he told the bartender. "Arthur, this is one of the owners, Berwald."

"Hi," Arthur said shyly, accepting his beer. This Berwald (who nodded but didn't speak) was another chap like Alfred – big and strong and not girly in the least. The Brit did some more serious, but quick, revising of stereotypes.

"I'm going to write this in my diary when I get home," his cousin announced. "I cannot believe you decided to come with us!"

"Will you _shut it?_" Arthur jabbed him in the gut with his elbow. "It is _not_ that big of a deal. I was just curious, and hadn't finished talking to you wankers."

"Yeah, leave him alone, babe." Sadik pulled Alfred close for a kiss. "Give him his space."

"Besides, git, you know you don't actually keep a diary."

"Pfft."

Together they stood leaning back against the bar, chatting about this and that. Alfred kept turning to his cousin with a huge manic grin, but Arthur tried to ignore this and look around. "I'm so stoked," the loud blond announced. "Tonight a Beatles tribute band is playing, and they do a ton of slow songs. I love slow-dancing with Sadik!"

"Hard to believe you gits can calm down enough to slow dance."

"Dude, you should see us in the bedroom," Alfred grinned archly.

"No, _I should not!"_ Arthur pounded down his beer and ordered another, shooing his cousin away with both hands. "Go away. I'm going to stay here and drink myself stupid, and you can toss me out onto the welcome mat of my apartment later on."

"Aw," Alfred began, but Sadik wordlessly dragged him away. Whew.

Of course Arthur didn't really plan to drink himself stupid. Now that he'd taken the ballsy step to come here, he wanted to be very analytical of the whole situation. Idly he glanced around the place, wondering what he would say if any of these wankers asked him to dance!

He decided to consider the men he could see. Find out if any of them seemed attractive to him in the same way L-Lovino did. As always, his breath caught at the thought of that young man, but he recovered and began to scan the room.

First, over by the door, a rather effeminate-looking Asian man; probably Chinese, but Arthur wasn't sure. The embroidered red robes and long hair in a ponytail really made him look like a girl! As he watched, the Chinese (?) man smacked another Asian guy in the face and started screaming at him. Hah. No, that did not interest him at all.

"Excuse me." A blond man with a flirty smile appeared next to him. "My name is, like, Feliks." He winked at Arthur. "I'd totally love to buy you a drink!"

Wow. That had been fast. Arthur objectively considered him, and hurriedly blurted out the first thing he could think of. "Er, ah, no, th-thank you, but I'm good." He raised his beer. Bollocks, that sounded lame. "But thank you," he repeated.

"Like, no problem." Feliks smiled some more and wandered off. Arthur watched him go, wondering what it would actually be like to dance with a man. Slow dance, of course. Fast dancing would probably be just like fast dancing with a girl. Would he let someone grope his arse? That was almost disgusting.

Would he let Lovino grope his arse?

Bloody hell! There was no point in thinking about any of this crap. He decided just to observe, and stop all the pointless analyzing.

Nothing much happened for a while, and then the band came out. Sadik and Alfred fought their way back through the growing crowd to Arthur's side. "Wow, this place is not as packed as I'd expected," Sadik yelled.

"I know, right?" Alfred bought three more beers. "Anything exciting happening, Artie? See any cute boys?" He and his boyfriend laughed uproariously at the bored, irritated expression on the Brit's face. "Man, I'm sorry. I just – "

"Yes, yes, wanker, I know! Just enjoy yourselves and stop pestering me."

Just then the band launched into a loud, fast song. "Aw, c'mon, Sadik, let's dance. See ya, Artie!" The two of them joined the leaping, gyrating crowd on the dance floor; Arthur watched them with an amused smile, because even though they were idiots, they were fun to watch. He noticed a lot of other people in the place were watching and laughing, too.

When he'd finished his beer, he turned towards the bar to set the bottle down, and his eyes caught a movement in the crowd. The Asian man who'd been smacked in the face appeared before him. "Hey, cutie, want to dance with me, da ze?"

But Arthur was looking past him, his eyes locked on a strange hair curl moving through the crowd. The beer bottle slid to land on the bar; he let go and heard it spin in place, making a ringing noise, but he couldn't tear his eyes away to look at it. His hand gripped the edge of the bar to stop him fainting like a girl, and he forgot to breathe.

Lovino Vargas had just walked in the door.

…

_The person China slapped in the face was Korea, da ze._

_Feliks = Poland_

_Berwald = Sweden and Tino = Finland _


	8. Chapter 8

Lovino froze, unable to breathe. He felt as if he were receding down a long, dark tunnel, with nothing visible except the stunning blond Arthur at the other end. Practically gasping, he stumbled into the bastard next to him, which shook him out of this weird mental state. Holy shit, what a stroke of luck! But would Arthur even remember him? His feet hustled him straight past the bar, without his usual Bloody Mary, without greeting Tino, right up to the blond. "Hi, Arthur," he said immediately, again trying to fight a grin. This was unbelievable! "Remember me?"

"O-of course I do, Lovino," Arthur said to him in that clipped British voice, with a little smile. Ah, he _did_ remember…

They shook hands professionally; he didn't want to let go...but he could clearly see that Arthur felt awkward; the green eyes shifted nervously back and forth as they spoke. "Are you here with someone?" Lovino asked, his heart sinking. To get so close – He gave himself the little lecture again, very quickly.

"N-no, it's just – I'm – er –" Arthur flapped a hand around weakly.

Ah. Now Lovino understood. He had been just the same way, the first time he'd dared come into this place. "This is your first time here?" Just as the blond nodded, the band began a slow song. "Will you please dance with me?" he blurted out. He could not let this opportunity go past!

But Arthur looked, if possible, even more frightened. The Italian hastened to fix the situation. "Or – or if that makes you uncomfortable, I'd be happy just to talk to you, get to know you a little better. I don't mean to, uh –"

"N-no," Arthur stammered again.

"Dammit!" How could he have made such a stupid fool of himself, read so much into this man's presence? Disgusted with himself and beyond disappointed, Lovino spun away, but felt a hand on his sleeve yanking him back. With a little scowl he turned back to the bastard.

Arthur's face was a study in torment, but his grip on the sleeve was firm. "I – I meant, no, it d-doesn't make me uncomfortable. I would – I will – I want to dance with you!"

Clearly he _was_ uncomfortable, but the way he'd so earnestly denied it was adorable. Relieved once again, and feeling suddenly protective of the blond, Lovino reached out and clasped his hand once more. "Cool. Come over this way," he suggested warmly, gesturing towards a darker area of the dance floor. "Then you won't feel so conspicuous."

Arthur nodded and they walked over to that area together. Heart in his throat, the brunet reached for the uptight deliveryman, placing one hand gently on his hip, the other in the small of his back. After glancing around, the Brit softly put his arms around Lovino's neck and they drew closer together. Ah, dammit, he was so fine, and this felt so good already. He slipped both arms around Arthur's waist, holding his strong body close. He would do absolutely everything to put Arthur at his ease. Everything. But to hold him close, to feel his warmth and sense his breath – Lovino felt like this was some kind of minor miracle.

"I – I'm sorry that I'm so – it's just – "

"Shh," he interrupted soothingly. "We can talk later. No one is watching. Just hold me, and relax. Please? It will be all right. I promise you."

Arthur offered him that soft, nervous smile again, and moved closer, holding him more securely. Ah, this was already the best dance ever, and they were only ten seconds into it. Lovino closed his eyes, holding on tenderly, as if he were cradling something precious and fragile: a flower, a heart.

…

This man, this gorgeous Italian that he'd been obsessing over, wanted to dance with him? Oh, _yes. _ So Arthur followed Lovino to the side of the dance floor. As he eyed the other couples for a guideline, he saw that most of them were just holding each other and lightly swaying to the music. He could do that. He put his arms around Lovino's neck and tried to apologize for his idiotic behavior, but the brunet didn't seem to mind it. "Just hold me," he said kindly, and Arthur, still shaky, did.

Taking deep breaths, feeling himself safe in the warm circle of Lovino's arms (no aggression, no groping), he knew this was absolutely right. This was the most intense experience of his life, and he tried to memorize every little sensation, inhaling his partner's fresh woodsy scent, feeling the softness of that silly hair curl against his cheek. Little by little Arthur's tension abated, until, at the end of the song, his head rested intimately on Lovino's shoulder, and the brunet was supporting him like a rag doll. The two of them stepped slowly back from each other and offered smiles: Arthur's still shy and nervous, Lovino's wide and wondering, like a child with the best present ever.

The blond had reached a decision, and he felt his heart opening, to –

"Artie! Awesome! I _told_ Sadik you'd – "

"Bloody hell!" He was jolted right out of his soft serenity and swiveled to punch Alfred in the nose.

Oh, _bugger._

But his cousin just fell back against the wall, laughing and laughing, and fixed his slipped eyeglasses. "Hey, I really am sorry, man. Have fun. We'll leave you alone." He wandered off, still cackling raucously, while the angry, panting Arthur stood with his fists clenched, growling and cursing at the wanker under his breath.

"Bastard?" Lovino asked nervously.

Buggerbugger_bugger._ He'd probably just frightened the man away with that blasted display. Why couldn't he keep his temper under wraps? _Bloody _Alfred! Arthur turned to his dance partner and saw Lovino staring at him in admiration, his lips parted and eyes shining. "I'm sorry," he apologized, not registering that. "I've – I've just been so keyed up about you –" Bollocks; he had no idea what to say, and pressed his finger and thumb into his eye sockets.

"Y-you've been keyed up about _me_?"

He nodded. "And I don't – don't know – this is all so, so – " But he still couldn't come up with the right words.

"Would you like to talk about it?" When Arthur nodded, Lovino scanned the bar's interior. "This is not the best place for it, though. We could go outside and sit down? It would be quieter there." But he did nothing to pressure Arthur, nothing at all, not even trying to touch him.

Staying true to the decision he'd made, the blond agreed to this. He would like to sit and share, and maybe Lovino (who seemed much more sympathetic than idiotic Alfred) would be able to help him come to grips with all this. A quiet talk would be perfect to calm him down after all the confusion and emotion of the past few weeks. A-and who knew what would happen, when the two of them were quiet and alone together? Maybe Lovino would k-kiss him? He stumbled but caught himself and nodded again. "I would like that."

They headed for the door, elbowing people aside; that chap Feliks caught his eye and winked as he passed; Arthur, now buoyant, offered a bright smile. What a night!

The evening was still not far advanced. Summer air, hot and still, blanketed them, and the sidewalks teemed with people passing by on the way to their individual destinations. "Well, this sucks," Lovino snapped, glancing around. "Where the hell can we sit and talk without everybody and his fucking monkey listening to us?" Tino's was on a city street; other than plunking their arses down on the curb, there was no obvious place for an intimate talk.

Arthur didn't know this area well, and said so.

"Hm. Well, we could go to my place. S-sit outside on a picnic blanket and talk. The property is big enough that nobody would overhear us. You'd know how to get home from there." Lovino stared down at the sidewalk. "If we – if we sit outside, maybe you would f-feel safer? Not trapped in some stranger's house, I mean. Or if there's some other place you want to go – a coffee shop, or a park – I'm h-happy to do that too."

It hit the Brit like lightning that Lovino was just as nervous as he was. This surprised him. "Your place is all right." He could probably fight his way out of anything nasty, if necessary, and he had long since memorized the address, so he could call a cab later on. "But I rode here with Alfred and Sadik. I don't have a car."

"I drove. But do you want to tell them you're leaving?"

"Pfft. I'll send them a text once we're gone. If I go back in and tell them that, I'll never get out of here alive." He grinned, imagining Alfred's explosion of disbelief.

Lovino didn't answer right away, instead gazed at him happily. "I really like your smile."

Arthur felt the blush, lost the smile, but couldn't figure out how to respond, so they stood there like idiots for a few seconds before Lovino gestured to the little parking lot. "Ahem. My car's right over here." Together they walked to it and got in.

The blond took a deep breath, buckling up, as the adventure of his life continued.

…

_Welcome to all the new reviewers! I'm glad you're enjoying it._


	9. Chapter 9

By the time they reached the familiar Vargas place, Arthur's nerves were stretched tightly: whether from excitement or fear, he couldn't say. With a terse acknowledgement he followed his host to the back yard, where (he was amused to see) there was indeed a pool, as he'd bet himself on that very hot, tumultuous day. Maybe he and Lovino could swim tonight?

Er. But he had no bathing suit. His face burned and his heart began to pound at the idea of – of – of _skinny-dipping_ with his new – new friend, and he stumbled. (It didn't occur to him that he might be able to borrow some swim trunks.)

"You okay, bastard?" They spread a blanket under the leaves of a rowan tree.

Before answering, Arthur sat and wrapped his arms around his knees. He stared out over the pool's dark waters. "Why do you keep calling me a bastard?"

"Uh…well, it's not about you specifically. I – I use it like a filler word, you know, like someone might say, 'Listen, friend,' or whatever. It – it really doesn't mean anything. I don't think you're actually a bastard at all."

Well, that was good. "Do you say it to everyone?"

"Everyone I'm friends with. Not my grandfather, or my brother, though. If I did, I'd probably get the crap beaten out of me. Sometimes I can get away with swearing, but not often."

"Your brother beats you up?" Now Arthur grew angry, never mind the fact that he and Alfred still beat each other up from time to time. But then, that wanker always deserved it…

Lovino began laughing loudly, leaning back against the tree trunk. "No, sorry, no. If you knew him you'd know why I'm laughing. My brother's a weak little shit, younger than I am. My grandfather would beat me, is what I meant, but he really wouldn't. He'd lecture my fucking ear off, though. He's still trying to teach me to be more respectful, but it's probably too late for any real change." They chuckled together about this.

This little conversation had calmed the Brit down somewhat. He wasn't nearly as on edge as he'd been when they'd arrived. So he relaxed a little, stretching his legs out in front of him and bracing his hands back on the blanket. "This is a nice property," he said appreciatively, by way of getting some real conversation started. Then he mentally kicked himself. He wasn't here to make bloody bland chit-chat with Lovino! He wanted to learn more about him but didn't really know what to ask, or say.

For a few seconds they simply sat together, not speaking, while he tried to come up with something clever. Maybe Lovino understood his nervousness and was giving him time to settle? Or maybe the brunet had no idea how to get the conversation going either, or maybe he was regretting bringing Arthur to his home. Bollocks.

But this state of silence didn't even last one minute. Lovino asked gently, "You said tonight was your first time at Tino's. Have you – have you just recently realized that you're gay? Or is it just that you just recently decided to admit it?"

"No. I mean, I'm not even sure about it now." Arthur took a deep, audible breath. In quiet tones he explained about Alfred's early understanding of his own sexuality; his own confusion about that, because of Alfred's strong hearty nature, because he was never girly at all. He also explained about letting Alfred and Sadik drag him to Tino's tonight.

"Not all gay men are girly," Lovino pointed out. "That's a media stereotype, though there probably are a lot who act that way."

"I know that now. But at the time – this may have been ten years ago – I was really not interested in thinking about it much at all. You understand? I was so frightened of being seen that way myself, because I'm not big and rough like he is. Eventually, when he started finding dates – and those boys _were_ swishy and squealy – I figured Alfred was just an anomaly. And it was easy to put it all out of my head, because I still lived in London and only saw him during the summers, and anyway, there were always a lot of pretty girls around."

"Did you date them?"

"Every now and then. Never got too emotionally involved with any of them." He fiddled with his skull ring, mind drifting back to the panic he'd had earlier about this outfit. He flicked his eyes to Lovino in the near-dark. The brunet wore a simple black tee and basketball shorts, a rather sporty outfit, and it made the blond feel overdressed and a bit showy.

Lovino cleared his throat. "When's the last time you went out with a girl?"

That particular question made the Brit laugh, and he relaxed some more. "Day after you bumped into me. Took her out to lunch and broke up with her."

Lovino drew a sharp breath. "Really the day after?"

"Really. I – I still didn't know how I felt about all this other business, but I knew I couldn't be with her any longer. There was really nothing there for me." He sighed. "There never was, with any of them."

"Uh. Sorry. If you don't want to tell me about this shit – "

"No, that's all right. I – I made up my mind, after we danced, that I'd trust you tonight. I feel like I need some guidance, and bloody Alfred's not going to be sympathetic about this." Arthur's hesitant voice went on to pour out all the anxiety and drama that had started with Lovino's bumping into him that hot delivery day, and ended with the dance. "I've just been so adrift…have just recently begun to consider this – this way of being, this way of looking at myself, that I have resisted so violently up until now. Up until I caught your eye in the bar, I was convinced this was all just…just me overanalyzing things. That it was all some kind of aberration, curiosity, whatever, and soon I would get back to normal. A couple of blokes in the bar came up to me, but none of them interested me at all." He twisted his fingers together in his lap. Several minutes of silence passed. He hoped he hadn't upset Lovino with this confession.

"And after you caught my eye in the bar?" the Italian finally asked, reaching out to touch his hand gently.

"I was…_am_…still nervous…but in a – a good way, I suppose. I wanted to see what would happen. That – that dance," Arthur confessed in a rush, "that was the most amazing thing that ever happened to me."

"It was awesome," blurted the brunet, and then covered his mouth with his hand.

Now almost perfectly at ease, Arthur grinned widely, not sure if his new friend could see that in the darkness. "I'm glad you thought so too. I – I wish bloody Alfred hadn't shown up."

"Pfft. Me too, bastard. Is his timing always that bad?"

"He's just clueless. Forget him."

"So…how do you feel? About – about me, I mean, and – and all this? Do you know yet?"

Without any hesitation Arthur clarified, "Of course I would like to know you better. The – the way you make me feel is – scary? Exhilarating? I can't decide. M-maybe after a while I'd still feel it wasn't right to – to date a man, but I won't know until I take that step. Right?"

"Right. And I – I promise I won't pressure you at all, about anything. I know it's got to be bizarre, what you're going through. If I can help you at all, tell me." He reached out and gently took the blond's hand in his.

Arthur thrilled to his touch, and paid special attention to the feel of the warm hand in his, the strong fingers clasping his own. "You came right up to me in the bar. You remembered me. I was surprised at that."

Lovino played with his fingers. "Let me tell you about Project Fish," he eventually laughed, settling back against the tree again.

"What the bloody hell is Project Fish?"

The brunet explained, coherently and with almost no swearing, about his need for a hobby, his somewhat arbitrary decision to raise koi. Arthur made appreciative comments about the choice of project, until Lovino talked about his idiotic, rationalized need to order a thousand things from a thousand different stores and to wait for the deliveries with some fresh iced tea for the driver. "I – I thought everything would be sh-shipped by FedEx," he confessed, "a-and that I would get to see you more. Except none of them did. They all came by goddamn UPS and shit."

Arthur stared at him. "Just to see _me?"_

"Yeah. But I wasn't – wasn't brave enough to come right out and admit it, even to myself. I just kept pushing the idea of you out of my head, because I knew it was stupid to think about you that way when we hadn't even introduced ourselves. Then one night I was super-pissed because the last of the fish stuff had arrived and – and none of it was delivered by you, so I decided to send it all back. I tried to kid myself that FedEx was the best choice of shipper, but even if they had a shit reputation I would have picked them to ship it."

"That was the Francis day?"

"Pfft. Yes. That dumb bastard really made me nervous. I sat around all morning trying to think of clever things to say to you, and when I saw him, well, it all flew right out of my head. I knew I couldn't say any of it in front of a stranger. That's why I was stammering and acting like such an idiot."

"I didn't notice," Arthur pointed out quietly. "I was too busy trying not to act like an idiot around you."

Still holding his hand, Lovino spread their fingers and laced them together; Arthur's nervous grin returned, but he held on bravely as his friend spoke once more. "I'm amazed that we met at Tino's. I have been trying to come up with some stupid reason to ship more shit, because I wanted to see you some more. When I saw you tonight, it felt like magic. Some kind of miracle. The one person in the world I most wanted to see –" Lovino left this dangling.

Wow. "You go there a lot?"

"I haven't for a couple of years; been away at university. Some bad shit happened to me at school, and I've only been to Tino's twice since I got back. Just felt I needed to get out of the house, I guess. I haven't been going anywhere much, because I've been sitting around at home waiting for the FedEx guy." They laughed a little at this. "I wanted to talk to someone sympathetic. Tino is always good for a little of that."

Arthur put a hand on Lovino's shoulder and then thought _screw it_ and slipped his arm around him.

Lovino turned to him. It was now completely dark, though a little light from street lamps made pinpoints in the distance. "You are so brave. All the things you told me sounded so shy and fearful, but here you are holding me. Are you all right with it?"

"So far so good," Arthur joked. "I – as long as you don't rush me, I think – I think I can do this. I want to try, anyway. It's a little easier in the dark, too."

Lovino leaned over and rested his head on his shoulder. "I won't ever rush you. If you feel I'm pressuring you at all, tell me."

"All right." He scooted a bit closer and enjoyed the sensation of togetherness. Lovino's solid warmth leaning against him felt reassuring, strengthening him.

"This feels so nice, just relaxing with you," the Italian eventually told him softly. "After all the anxiety shit I went through after I slammed into you. Sorry about that, by the way."

Arthur laughed. "It wasn't a problem. I just felt so bloody stupid because all I'd been thinking about that day was the heat, and looking forward to my air-conditioned apartment. I suppose I might have looked like a sacrificial calf or something."

"You looked fucking hot, is what you looked like. W-without your shirt? Shit." He told Arthur about returning his grandfather's package just to be able to speak with him some more.

The Brit was by now completely amazed at all this, and beginning to believe his friend's fervent comments about magic and miracles. "I dreamed about you that night," he confessed, wanting to share some vulnerability of his own.

Lovino reached up and combed his fingers through the blond hair, making his scalp tingle. "I am going to take such good care of you, _mio biondo. _Going to cherish you and make you the happiest man in the entire world, if you let me. Whatever you want, however you want it."

"Er…okay…will you start by telling me what 'mio biondo' means?"

"'Mio biondo' means 'my blond one,'" Lovino told him softly, almost seductively, right into his ear. "I hope that you _are_ my blond one, or that you will be someday."

"I will be. I am." Arthur tried to be equally smooth, but then he yawned, a great, jaw-cracking yawn that embarrassed the bloody hell out of him. "I'm sorry!" he panicked. "It's so late, and I – I get up at five in the morning for work. It doesn't mean I'm bored!" Bollocks, if Lovino grew angry –

The brunet placed his fingers over his lips. "Shh. It's all right; I understand. Five o'clock? Fuck, that's early. I didn't get up until eleven. But it's been a long day for you. Do you want to go home?"

Arthur grinned in the dark. "Not just yet," he said softly. "W-will you h-hold me for a while? I would like that very much."

The brunet gave him a very quick squeeze. "Of course I will. I'd like it too. Let's lie back and relax a little." They reclined on the blanket, Arthur on his back, Lovino propped up on one elbow with his other arm around the Brit's waist. "You feel so good," the deep Italian voice murmured to him.

Arthur raised a hand to stroke his friend's cheek, much as Lovino had done to him earlier. "It feels very good to me as well," he agreed, wondering if Lovino would kiss him, or if he would have to come right out and ask for it. That seemed bloody shameless, and he wasn't sure he could do it. So he decided just to bide his time and see what happened.

But he could do other things: caress, or speak romantic phrases. He felt Lovino's fingers rubbing gently up and down against his side, and panicked again, because this snuggling and touching was beginning to turn him on. Reflexively, he tried to fight it, before remembering that with this new friend, this striking man he'd met, it would be all right. Getting aroused was part of the plan, even though it prevented his brain from thinking of anything romantic! So – "Kiss me," he blurted out, before he could lose his nerve.

With a delighted little moan, Lovino leaned forward and gently brushed their lips together. "More?" he asked cheekily, after drawing back.

Arthur didn't answer, just reached up and slid a hand around to the back of Lovino's neck, drawing him back down. The brunet moaned once more before leaning in to kiss him properly, intensely, arousing Arthur more than he'd ever been in his life. He daringly slid his hands down to cup that shorts-clad arse, and oh, wasn't it sweet, and then the back door of the house opened, silhouetting someone in a rectangle of yellow light. "Lovi? Is that you?"

He rolled off Arthur and roared out, _"Idiota! __Tornare dentro adesso, o ti rompo la faccia di cazzo!"_

"Veeeeee…" The light faded abruptly as the door slammed.

"Wh-what was all that?"

"Dammit. My stupid little brother. I told him if he came out here I'd break his fucking face."

Arthur began to laugh, and Lovino lay atop him, holding him, and laughing as well.

…

_As usual my Italian is all thanks to Bing Translator. Except "idiota." I know that one by now._


	10. Chapter 10

The two of them returned to their kissing, deep and sweet, slow and languorous, with little moans of pleasure. Lovino had never felt so strong in his whole fucking life – and then Arthur yawned again, right in his face. "Er – "

The Italian drew back and raised an eyebrow. "Now, look here, my boy," he joked in a hearty, avuncular tone, poking Arthur in the shoulder repeatedly, "this has got to stop. You need your sleep!" He slipped off and lay beside him, stroking the fluffy blond hair again. It felt like cashmere under his fingers. "Seriously, bastard. We – we'll have time for this. You should go home and rest."

"But I – but – "

"Do you think I'm going to have fun if you fall asleep out here? While we're making out?" Lovino punched him playfully in the arm; Arthur laughed and grabbed him again, rolling over and over until he ended up on top. The Italian felt as though the two of them had been in love for thousands of years, but separated, and just now reunited. How high he felt, how excited! But this was one of his known failings: jumping too far, too fast. He would try to take it slowly, and see if it really might turn out to be love, for a change. He would do his damnedest to make that happen.

But tonight it wouldn't be much fun if his new boyfriend was going to lie here and yawn all night, or fall asleep. Lovino gave him a big, encouraging squeeze. "Look, let me take you home. Sleep as long as you want. M-maybe if the weather's nice tomorrow, you could come over and swim with me, and we – we can talk some more?" He did want to share his past; wanted the Brit to understand where he was coming from. "And if it rains we can find someplace to go. Out to eat or something."

"You are being very good to me, very considerate." Arthur struggled to sit up and leaned forward for another kiss. "And you're probably right. I just – this is all so bloody new and interesting – "

"So new and interesting that you keep yawning," Lovino agreed with a snort. "Come on. I'll drive you home. Will you come over tomorrow?"

"Of course I will. The weather _is_ supposed to be nice. Swimming with you sounds like a grand idea."

They stood up and dusted off their clothes; Lovino also scooped up the blanket and tossed it onto the porch chair as they passed. "Hold on a second." He yanked open the back door. "Hey, idiot!"

"Ve?" came weakly from the living room. Pfft. The moron was probably too scared to show his face.

"I'm going out for a while. Back in a bit."

"Okay, Lovi," Feli quavered. Hah.

He slammed the door and took Arthur's hand as they walked back to the car. "You have to stay awake long enough to tell me where you live, okay? And not make me fall asleep while I'm driving."

"Yes, all right." They smiled at each other and got into the little blue Fiat again. "This has been an amazing night for me."

The Italian was about to make a smart remark about yawning again, but decided not to risk it. He didn't know how far he could tease Arthur without pissing him off, and he definitely did not want to piss him off! "For me too," he grinned instead. "Thanks for being so brave." He pulled out of the driveway.

"If I hadn't been brave, I'd be a total wreck. Sitting at home and kicking myself for not taking the chance, and spending all next week sneaking past your house in my truck."

"You did that?"

"Pfft," Arthur laughed, but didn't say anything else.

"Well, it doesn't matter. We got it all sorted out, right? You're brave, I'm brave, we're a couple of fucking brave bastards." He reached over and ruffled the blond hair vigorously.

"Right." Arthur leaned into his caress and gave him the directions.

…

When they reached his apartment Arthur cleared his throat awkwardly. "Listen, Lovino – I – I'd like to ask you to stay tonight? But I'm still nervous, a little. And I'd just be sleeping, anyway. But I wanted you to know that I would like that, would like to stay with you longer."

"Don't worry, _biondo._ I wouldn't rush you tonight anyway. Go in, get some good rest. Why don't you come over around noon? I'll make us a nice lunch and we can swim afterwards?" Lovino hadn't cooked for a couple weeks, but this was a great incentive! Half his mind was already busy planning a surprising menu.

"Okay. Good night." Arthur leaned over the center console for a kiss. "Thank you for taking care of me so well, and letting me deal with all this in my own time." He ran his fingers through Lovino's hair.

The brunet shivered a little and stroked his cheek in response, fighting his arousal. "You're welcome, you adorable bastard. See you tomorrow."

Arthur got out of the car and bent down to blow a kiss to the brunet, who strangely felt himself blushing at this. He returned it, watched Arthur head into his apartment, blew another kiss in that general direction, and drove home, wrapped in romantic dreams, while a tiny voice yelled unheeded warnings in his mind.

…

When the blond arrived the next day – punctually at noon – Lovino had to restrain himself from grabbing his ass and plastering that beautiful mouth with delicious kisses. Grandpa and Feli were both out of the house, but he had once promised his grandfather never to do any fooling around at home with any boys he might meet. He'd never minded this restriction before (and last night, in the dark, hadn't counted, he'd decided, since no one had been able to see them). So today he merely smiled, giving Arthur a quick hug and taking his little duffel bag. "Glad to see you."

"Likewise. I kept worrying you might change your mind?" Arthur had a quaver in his voice.

"Not a chance, bastard. Not – a – fucking – chance." This phrase seemed to ease the Brit's tension, and he sagged a little in place. "Come in," Lovino continued. "I've got lunch all ready for us." He gave his new friend the once-over. "Why are you all sweaty? It's not that hot out." He hadn't thought so, anyway.

"Rode my bike. I don't have a car."

Lovino nearly dropped the bag in shock, but managed to get it into the kitchen, where he set it near the back door for later. "You're kidding! How do you get by without a car?"

Arthur shrugged. "Don't need one. I ride to the depot in the morning, drive the truck all day, and ride home at night. If I'm going out I cadge a ride with someone, or ride the bike, and if there's something I desperately need, I usually try to sneak it in during work hours, so I have the truck to carry things around, or whatever. It's not a big deal. Helps me keep in shape."

Lovino blushed and busied himself with the plates. He was all in favor of Arthur staying in shape! "Uh, my family's out today, but – but I need to tell you, I have a rule, I'm not supposed to do anything – uh, you know, anything that would embarrass the family, with my – my boyfriends." He blushed again, because Arthur was really the first real boyfriend he'd had. That shit with Kiku didn't count, of course. Not after the stupid fucker's revelations at the end.

"That's fine with me. Makes it a little easier on me. I'm not sure I could handle it, if you wanted to sit around and make out in broad daylight!"

"Pfft. Silly bastard." He brought the plates to the table.

They sat and talked easily while eating, talked about the house, their families; he wanted to tell Arthur everything, but kept getting distracted by the meal. Finally he decided he'd wait until they were in the pool. They could float around and talk, and whatever. If he got too embarrassed he could always duck his head under the water for a minute or two…couldn't he? Sure.

"This was delicious! You made it all from scratch?"

"Yeah. I love to cook, and so does my brother, so we usually whip something up on weeknights."

"Thank you for going to the effort."

Lovino almost blurted out something romantic – something like "I'd go to a lot more effort than that, for you" – but he didn't want to bludgeon the still-nervous Arthur with too much drama. He fought to keep his cool, and just laughed a little. "No problem. But you owe me a meal, now."

Arthur visibly panicked. "Er – I – I can't cook at all!" he babbled. "I always burn my scones, and I – I – m-maybe a Marmite sandwich?"

Lovino had heard about Marmite and had absolutely no desire to try it. "Nope. No thanks. Take me to a restaurant, or you can do something else nice for me, I guess."

"I intend to," the blond said boldly, while blushing.

Dammit, how was it possible _not_ to fall in love with him? Lovino knew that he was going to be the first man – the first _person_ – to capture Arthur's heart. That even if something went wrong the Brit would always remember him for that.

But nothing _would_ go wrong. "Let's get changed and swim," he suggested with a deep breath, trying to put Arthur at his ease again.

"Okay. Do you want help with the dishes?"

Lovino was surprised. "Thanks, bastard. That's nice of you."

"I'm a bloody nice bastard."

"Hope so." He rubbed Arthur's hair and pecked a little kiss on his cheek before rising to clear the table and do the washing up.

…

"Wh-when did you know you – er – didn't like girls?" Arthur asked, once they'd gotten into the pool. Lovino had invited him to ask any questions he liked, so he wanted to start out with this kind of thing. He still didn't feel comfortable with the term _gay,_ or any of the other euphemisms. He still wasn't actually sure that _he_ was that way. After all his analysis, it was still only Lovino himself who intrigued him. (He'd spent a little time this morning trying to daydream about Francis…Sadik…or that Feliks chap…but no, none of them moved him at all.)

"High school. But it was a conscious decision on my part." Lovino cleared his throat and stared down at the water. "There was – there was this girl. Very pretty, very popular girl, my year. Her name was Natalia. My friends thought she was a bitch, but…I was kind of cocky back then." He laughed. "I'm still cocky now, I guess, but at least a little less stupid and public about it. I thought of myself as one of the handsomest bastards in the school, intelligent and cool and fun, even though I was only sixteen and not very well-known. I was fairly sure she'd go out with me, and on that first date I'd make her feel really good and she'd want to date me all the time. That even if she was a bitch, dating me would change that. Then I'd be more popular, et cetera, et-fucking-cetera. You know how it is when you're first starting out." His hands swirled water around and he looked up to shrug at his friend.

"I do know." Arthur stretched out and enjoyed the feel of the cool water on his limbs. "She turned you down?" This was the only explanation he could think of.

"No, it was a lot worse than that. I caught her alone in the hallway and asked her for a date. She agreed, and wrote her address down and told me to pick her up at eight on Saturday. She was really sweet to me, and acted quite interested. But we had to get to class so we didn't say much else, right then.

"So, on the Saturday, this was the first time Grandpa allowed me to take the damn car out on my own. I took so much care of how I looked, washed the car, filled up the gas tank, and drove to the address she'd given me, and…well, she screwed me. This address was for a grocery store in the middle of town."

"You're certain?"

"Oh, yes. I spent three fucking hours driving around, trying to figure out where she might be. I thought she might have wanted me to pick her up there instead of at her house for some reason. But by eleven, when I hadn't found her, I decided to go home; didn't have her number, so I couldn't even call. I went home, didn't say anything to Grandpa or my brother, and worried about her all weekend. What if something had happened to her?

"When I got to school on Monday she was there, looking normal. I went right up to her and asked if she was all right, and told her about getting lost and that shit. And she started – started laughing at me, right in front of everyone, and said, 'What made you think I would actually go on a date with you, little boy?' _Little boy!_ The bitch was the same age as me! And everybody else laughed, too; there were about ten people standing around listening to this. N-Natalia – then she said a lot of insulting shit about me; I was too girly-looking, and my accent sounding too foreign and crap like that. Stupid, shitty reasons why she would never consider dating me."

"_What?_ Your voice is excellent. I've thought so ever since I first heard it." Supportively, Arthur reached over and grabbed Lovino's hand in his. "A-and you're bloody gorgeous," he whispered hoarsely, not sure if that was appropriate to say.

The brunet immediately relaxed. "Arthur!"

His hand was warm despite the cool pool water. The Brit didn't want this old pain to disturb his new friend, so he laced their fingers together supportively. "Don't worry about all that old shite," he said quietly, trying to be calm about the hand-holding, keeping it under the water so no one would see. "It's behind you now. She wasn't worth your time."

Their hands stayed clasped as Lovino continued his tale. "Yeah. Well, I was so pissed off I cut class for the rest of the day and went home and sneaked a whole bottle of bourbon, and I was as sick as a fucking dog for two days. Since that day I've never touched girls, and I try not to drink much, either." He snorted. "I usually fail with that part."

"So, you just – just switched over to boys? Just like that?"

Lovino squeezed his hand. "Not right away. I spent the rest of high school mostly observing, seeing how nasty girls could really be, and just hanging out with my friends and having fun with them. None of us ever dated anyone back then. Eventually it just worked its way into my brain, that the only way I would find l-love with someone would be with a guy."

"Ha-have you ever dated someone? A man, I mean."

"Eventually. I went on a couple local dates when I first discovered Tino's, but they didn't amount to much. German bastard, Swiss bastard…" Lovino dropped his hand and shoved his wet hands into his hair. "But – but I had a real relationship at university. Sort of."

"If you don't want to tell me, that's fine." He didn't want to be the cause of remembered pain. Not now, not when they were getting along so well.

"No, I do want to tell you. I need to explain it so I can get to where we are now. Want you to understand me, and why meeting you was such a – an amazing thing for me. Because it was. It is!"

"Tell me, then," he said, laughing at his friend's enthusiasm.

The brunet took his hand again and led him to the side of the pool, where they sat side by side on an underwater ledge. Arthur blushed and leaned closer, wondering for a moment how strictly Lovino's grandfather would define "fooling around."

With a deep breath the Italian launched into the next part of his tale. "Ever since I was a kid I wanted to be an architect. I used to spend all my time drawing cool buildings, stuff like temples and Renaissance churches and things. Not modern shit. So when it came time to go to the university I looked at four schools that were really highly rated. One was in Japan. And I was scared shitless of that, because I had no knowledge of the culture, but then I thought it might be different, interesting, whatever, to challenge myself that way. I got accepted there, and spent the rest of high school and my summer vacations studying the language and culture, so I could get by."

"So you're an architect, and fluent in Japanese? You must be bloody brilliant." Arthur had gone to university as well, but in London, and had majored in hotel, restaurant and institution management. Totally useless, of course, which is why he was a FedEx driver now. And he'd never learned a second language, either.

"Pfft. I'm fluent in Japanese, but I'm not brilliant. In a lot of ways I'm a fucking idiot." He paused. "My roommate was a Japanese bastard. Kiku. He was gorgeous, but just a little bizarre, totally expressionless no matter what was happening. Never knew what he was thinking."

"Was it difficult to live with him? Or maybe it was easier, because he didn't give you any grief?"

"It was difficult. It got to the point where I was picking fights with him just to see if I could get him to lose his temper. One day I was so sick of that fucking flat expression that I threw a punch at him, and he pulled some martial arts shit and pinned me against the wall. A-and that, uh, it – well, I liked it, you know? I kissed him while he had me pinned."

Although this embarrassed him, Arthur tried to ignore that feeling. "Let me guess. He beat you up." He felt fairly depressed that all this rubbish had happened to his new friend.

"No. H-he kissed me back, and then – uh – well, after about week of dancing around the topic, we became lovers."

Arthur didn't speak, just waited for Lovino to continue, and let go of his hand in order to draw himself into the fetal position. The sex aspect was, of course, the one part of (possibly) being gay that terrified him the most.

Lovino cleared his throat. "F-for the rest of university we were together. We did a lot of date shit, and a lot of studying together, and all that. I really – really thought I was in love. Later, after I got back here and talked to my friends about it, I understood it was a kind of crappy relationship, because we didn't really share or anything, but I was so happy to have someone who was nice to me, and – and physically close, and all that." He squeezed Arthur lightly around the waist. "I hadn't realized how much I'd missed physical companionship, until I held you in my arms for the dance," he murmured.

"I – I liked that _a lot,_" Arthur confessed, his face burning. "I've never been that physically close to anyone before."

"What, ever? What about the girls you dated?" Lovino sounded shocked.

"I never dated girls who were like that. Th-they were always sweet, princessy girls. Nobody ever really wanted to be i-intimate with me, not even for something like a dance."

"Those morons," his friend smiled, reaching up to stroke Arthur's cheek with the backs of his wet fingers. "Idiots, all of them."

Silence spread between them again; Arthur didn't know what to say, so he just waited patiently, feeling the warm fingers dripping against his skin; he didn't want that to stop…

But of course Lovino did stop soon and resumed his tale with a little sadness or resignation in his tone. "Anyway, I always knew I wanted to work in the States. There was never any question of living in Japan after I graduated. It was very alien and stressful to me to be there, but in the summers or at Christmas I would come home and sort of recuperate for a while. So it wasn't that bad during school, but I knew it wasn't a long-term option for my life."

"I can imagine. I only moved to America because I already spoke the language."

"Pfft. Smart move. Well, during our final year I started sending résumés off, and making comments to him, like, 'If we get jobs in California we could learn to surf,' or whatever. Not that I really wanted to learn to surf. Just ideas about where we'd be, trying to prod him into discussions." He stopped and turned to Arthur. His voice by now was so wobbly that the blond realized the next part must have been really tough. Wordlessly he took Lovino's hand, stroking his elegant long fingers while his friend talked on.

"Final grades came out right before graduation and we'd never really talked about our future for real. I hadn't gotten any offers and I didn't know what was happening with him. I kept trying to talk about this, but he would always say he was busy studying. And he had a job, so a lot of times he'd hurry off to work. But h-he never said we'd talk about it later. He just kept avoiding the subject.

"My final grades were higher than his. I was pretty excited even though I hadn't gotten a job offer yet. Figured it was just a matter of time. Came home from the theatre one afternoon and he was filling out online forms for summer school. He said he was going to enroll in one more semester to boost his grades so they'd be higher than mine."

"You're kidding. What did you do?"

"Being the romantic idiot that I am," Lovino sneered in self-deprecation, "I decided to stay for summer school too, to be with him. I didn't have any job plans. I called Grandpa and told him, and he was fine with it. So I went through the enrollment and all that." He squeezed Arthur's hand fairly tightly, and the Brit allowed it even though it hurt. "But I came home one afternoon before summer semester started, and Kiku was packing up his shit! He said he was moving out, and he wished me well in my life and career."

"And that was it? What a bloody bastard!" Oops. If Lovino had loved the man –

But the Italian snorted. "Well, no. I got really pissed off and started yelling at him about it, trying to get some kind of explanation, and – and he got really violent and started shouting and fighting me again. It – it only lasted for about ten seconds, but it scared the shit out of me because he hadn't done it for a couple of years. Not since that first fight. I asked him how he could leave me like that, and – and he calmed down and said he would never want to live in the States; Japan was the best place in the world and the West was decadent: all this kind of nationalistic shit. He was – was going off to marry his sweetheart, some Vietnamese girl. He'd been dating her the whole time we were together! I yelled that I loved him, how could he d-do this to me when he loved me, and he said that what we had was not love. That he appreciated being able to – to be – uh, that I was – was _useful_…because he would never have been able to sleep with his fiancée before the wedding…it was dishonorable to do that to a girl. And he was totally expressionless all the time he said this shit, the bastard, and I – I burst into tears and just stood there sobbing like a goddamn girl. He picked up his things and left, and I never saw him again."

"Bugger." Arthur wrenched his aching hand free, but offered the other one, and Lovino took it. "Wh-what did you do?"

"In a nutshell? Went to summer school, slunk home, been pissing my life away since then."

"You just graduated, then?" Arthur asked. Lovino must be younger than he'd thought.

"No. This was over a year ago. I – I've been wallowing in self-pity all this time. Grandpa and Feli – my brother – they know all about this, and so do my two best friends, and everybody's been treating me like some kind of mental defective on the edge of a breakdown. All I've been doing is loafing around reading, swimming in the pool, hanging out with my friends, getting drunk." He let go of Arthur's hand and waist, and hung his head. "Loser behavior, mostly. Wasn't until recently I decided to get off my ass and do something with my life."

"Why?"

"Because of you, bastard! I didn't want you to know what a wimpy asshole I was, if we ever really met each other properly. I could just imagine us getting into a talk, and you asking me what I did for a living. Pfft. How asinine it would feel to say 'nothing.' But all the time since I came home, up until I saw you, that's basically what I'd planned to do. Just slack off the rest of my life, maybe write a book or something stupid to fill in my time. Never date anybody again. And I never saw anyone who interested me, so it was easy to convince myself that this was the way it would be. A-and then I saw you that day, and it was like my heart woke up, big time, and I started thinking about dating again. So I tried to come up with something real to do with my life so I wouldn't be embarrassed if we did ever talk. B-but…I was afraid to apply to any architectural firms for work."

"Fear of rejection?" He kept trying to keep the conversation grounded, but all he really wanted to do now was hold his tormented new friend, and make him laugh, and, yes, f-fall in love…

"N-no. I'm good enough. It was a fear of _acceptance._"

"Eh?"

"I was afraid some bastard company would want to hire me and make me move away! I didn't want to move away after I met you. Something interesting might have happened."

"Something interesting did happen," the blond grinned in relief and understanding.

"Y-yeah, I know. See? I'm totally vindicated!" They laughed together, there in the pool.

Arthur shifted a little closer on the ledge. "Remember last night, you said you were going to make me the happiest man in the world? I – I'm going to do that for you, too," he announced boldly. "Just tell me how."

Lovino's delighted smile chased away every last bit of anxiety that Arthur had. "Fuck my grandfather," the brunet murmured, pulling him close for a kiss.

"Mph. No thanks." Arthur made this dumb, stale joke automatically, but when Lovino began howling with laughter, he sat back and enjoyed the sight. They _were_ going to have a wonderful life together.

…

_Stay tuned. _


	11. Chapter 11

For several months everything did go beautifully between them. They went at first on little, casual dates, like dinner, or having a few drinks in bars that were not Tino's, spending time getting to know one another better. Then they graduated to amusement parks, sporting events, long walks after dark, little easy hikes with delicious secluded picnics midway through. Arthur told Lovino that he liked amateur photography, and often they went roaming around the city, searching for artistic places to take interesting photos. Concerts, movies, wine tastings, shopping; everything was more fun with the two of them together.

When they wanted privacy, they went to Arthur's place, and the brunet very patiently, over many visits, taught him what he knew of the physical side of love. The blond responded nervously, but with great trust, and with eagerness to experiment more. Lovino began to spend more and more nights at his friend's place, and on those evenings they settled into a homey routine that felt cozy and relaxing before segueing into steamy, erotic sex. It began to seem as though this relationship, which had sprung so intently out of a chance meeting, was a multifaceted and strong one that would last.

Lovino would force himself to stay awake, cuddled close in the narrow bed, and let all the romantic thoughts in the world stream through his head: daydreams of actually living together someday, in a home that he'd designed and had built. Could they move to a state that permitted same-sex marriage? This was a terrifying thought, but also an exciting one. Lovino thought that would be a very nice thing, someday…and they could get a bigger bed, too!

Christmas happened. Lovino's family always went back to Italy for the holidays. He dithered seriously about inviting Arthur to join them, but his friend mentioned offhand one day that no FedEx employees were allowed to take vacation in December, due to the increased holiday package shipments. So they agreed to plan a vacation together as soon as Arthur's schedule allowed it.

Still uneasy about his newfound sexual leanings, Arthur had at first asked him for one favor: that they not act like boyfriends in public. Lovino had no problem with this at all. When he introduced Arthur to Mathias and Gilbert, for example, he simply introduced him as a friend; the four of them went out drinking, and they behaved like four bastards out drinking. No boyfriend shit. And that was perfectly fine. He didn't mind it because he knew they would be intimate in private, later. (Also because he knew the other two fuckers would tease him mercilessly if he started acting goofy in front of them. Pfft.) The first time they were planning to meet them, he spent some time in the car briefing Arthur, especially on Gilbert's near-psychotic desire to 'get girls.'

"Huh," the blond replied.

"Don't worry. I won't say anything about us. Just – just don't take anything he says very seriously. He'll probably talk about 'chicks' all night, and at least you can kind of relate. All I ever do is sit there being pissed off."

"Don't be pissed off, loverboy. He may talk about the chicks, but we have each other, right?" Arthur blew him a kiss.

He laughed a little. "Yeah. It might actually be a lot more tolerable with you there, this time."

…

"So, what do you two do for a living?" Arthur asked idly, after they'd gotten the introductions out of the way and he'd spoken of his work.

"I work in construction." Mathias flexed his arms. "Just got promoted to supervisor, so I'm not doing as much lifting anymore, but it pays better."

"Kesesese! It's great for picking up chicks," Gilbert added predictably. "When he walks around in a t-shirt they start drooling at him. Very handy."

After the obligatory laughter, and Lovino's barely-suppressed snort, the Brit asked Gilbert, "What about you?"

"I just got a new job! I work in retail."

"What new job?" This was the first Lovino had heard of it. "What happened at Teavana?"

"Are you kidding me? That crap's so expensive, I couldn't handle trying to push it. _Scheisse,_ it's just tea! I felt kind of bad trying to get people to pay for it. Though it was awesome tea. But still. The atmosphere just wasn't suitable for me."

"Too right," Arthur the tea drinker agreed. "That place always intimidates me. Some of that rubbish is fifteen dollars an _ounce!_"

"So? Where the fuck are you working now?" Lovino demanded.

"Victoria's Secret."

"_What?"_ The brunet nearly spit his drink across the table. "Are you shitting me? Why the hell would you work there?"

Mathias laughed and poked him. "Why the hell not? Gets to see all the pretty girls, help them choose lingerie, flirt all day…why wouldn't he?"

"Plus," the albino added, "I get a lot of business from guys who want to buy gifts for their girlfriends. They're happier talking to me than some hot young girl who's a total stranger. And I'm on commission. I'm already the most awesome salesperson at our store, and I've only been working there three weeks!"

"That's…unbelievable," Arthur said slowly, but with a grin, and Lovino was forced to agree. Trust that dumbass to get some pervert job like that!

He then decided to put Gilbert on the spot, and asked him, with a smirk, if he ever tried on any of the merchandise.

At that, both Mathias and Arthur choked on their drinks, but Gilbert sat calmly until they were under control. "Just the panties," he replied archly, making both the blonds roar with laughter. Lovino simply covered his face in dismay. What a total moron. He didn't know if Gilbert was lying or not, and…he wasn't sure he really did want to know!

He hurriedly ordered a new round of drinks and changed the topic. That albino idiot would be the death of him, someday.

…

After a couple of months, during which he'd halfheartedly researched American architectural firms, Lovino worked up his nerve to talk to Arthur about the long term shit. For example, what if he did get a job somewhere else? What would they do? But the blond, shining with love, pointed out that he could do FedEx work anywhere, and that he'd follow Lovino to the ends of the earth. Bursting with enthusiasm, the brunet redoubled his search for employment to make Arthur proud of him. (Incidentally his grandfather was quite proud too.) No offers came in, but…at least he was taking the risk and doing something about his life!

Those were the golden days.

Every now and then, Lovino would manage to talk Arthur into spending time at Tino's, even though it was still a place that unnerved the blond. But they'd go there – always choosing a night when Arthur knew Alfred and Sadik were out of town or busy elsewhere – and get drinks, stand wedged into a corner and talk, dance one dance, and then leave. They never stayed more than an hour; never stayed long enough to chat with Tino or Berwald or do anything very fun.

Lovino didn't want to admit that this behavior disturbed him a little, so he mostly tried to ignore it, and he hoped his friend would grow more at ease there.

One day the two of them were out at the mall, preparing to pick up some gear for their vacation, a romantic spring camping trip in the mountains. Arthur stiffened at the sight of a couple in front of them: a short, slim blonde with a ribbon in her hair, and a tall man with spiky hair and a scar on his forehead. "Er," Arthur stammered, trying to turn away, and the girl, catching the movement, turned to them and smiled brightly.

"Oh, hello!" She took her companion's hand and dragged him over to the two of them. "It is so nice to see you! This is my boyfriend, Lars." The tall bastard nodded at them both. "This is an old friend of mine; his name is Arthur," she told Lars, shaking the Brit's hand.

"How are you doing, Lili? This is my – my – my friend, Lovino. This is Lili."

Somehow the four of them made pleasant noncommittal chit-chat for a minute, but Lovino felt disgusted. How much longer would it take before Arthur would be able to say "this is my _boyfriend"? _He checked his watch and dragged the blond away on a pretext, and they waved goodbye, heading down the hallway in the opposite direction. "Old girlfriend?" he asked sourly.

Arthur didn't pick up on that tone. "Yeah. The one I broke up with for you," he laughed.

"Are you ever going to introduce me as your boyfriend?" Lovino snapped this out a little more loudly than he'd expected to. "Or what?"

"Er, well, you – you know I have trouble acknowledging it in public. I – when we're alone, it's all right, yeah?" He smirked knowingly.

"When we're alone is not the problem, bastard. Are you ashamed of me? Embarrassed?"

"What? No! I'm completely happy with you and proud of you. You know that."

"I thought I did. Dammit, why can't you admit it in public by now? Have you even mentioned me to your fucking cousin?"

"N-not in so many words. He knows I have a new friend I'm spending time with."

"Dammit!" he yelled again, earning stares from passersby. But although Lovino knew he was treading on thin ice, he couldn't stop himself. "Will you grow up? Just deal with it, will you? You're gay and there's no reason to hide it!"

"Shut it, git! Stop talking about this in public." He scowled and dragged his friend out of the mall. "There is a reason to hide it, as I continually tell you. I can't go around allowing people to think I'm gay!"

"Why not? What's the fucking problem? _I_ admit it. Your cousin and his boyfriend admit it. Tino, Berwald –"

"Because I'm not! You know I'm not. It's all for you. If some other bloke wanted me, I would not be interested!"

They stepped outside into the crisp spring evening. "You are such a selfish bastard. All I want is for us to be happy together _all the time, _but we can't, because you keep treating me like a second-class citizen."

"Me selfish? You've known from the start how uncomfortable I am with all this, and yet you're now pressuring me to flaunt something that I'm not at ease with. _You're_ the bloody selfish one, Lovino."

"Fuck you," he muttered, stuffing his hands into his coat pockets. "It's been eight months! Man up and deal with it. If you want to be with me, you have to step up to the plate. I'm tired of hiding in your apartment. Tired of pretending we're just friends and tired of rushing out of Tino's – which is one of the few places where we can be seen together with no pressure – just to assuage your gay-not-gay anxiety!"

"The whole point, git, is that I do feel pressure at Tino's! I can't stand being around all those other chaps and knowing they're watching me. It makes me bloody uncomfortable. I thought you understood that." He strode towards Lovino's little car.

Something else snapped inside him at that sight. "I'm sick of chauffeuring you around all the time, too, bastard!"

Arthur stopped in the middle of the parking lot. "Really?"

"Really!" Lovino put his hands on his hips and glared at him.

Ten seconds of tension and the Brit deflated. "Fine. I'll get a cab home."

Still angry about Arthur's attitude, Lovino yelled out, "Fine! Don't talk to me until you're willing to let the whole world know!" Oh, he was horribly angry. What a sonofabitch!

But the blond stormed wordlessly off towards the edge of the parking lot, pulling out his cell phone to call a taxi. Lovino spat and climbed into his car, driving away, fuming. After being together for this long, Arthur simply had to realize the world didn't revolve around him, and that it was asinine – _completely_ asinine – to pretend they were just friends, when they were so much closer than that.

At that thought, tears began to fall so hard and fast that Lovino couldn't see, and he had to pull over to the side of the road. Dammit, this had been such a perfect relationship. He wiped his eyes.

It would still be perfect, if only Arthur could deal with this one little thing! Lovino wasn't being unreasonable about it…was he?

He thought about it over and over and over, sitting there in his car on the side of the road, still wiping occasional tears from his eyes. He could not see any legitimate reason why his viewpoint was wrong. He'd given Arthur plenty of time to accommodate himself to this new type of relationship; they'd taken it slowly, and he'd never once pressured him, not until tonight. At that thought he began to cry in earnest again. Wh-what if they broke up, just because he'd laid down this stupid ultimatum? What if Arthur left him? He pulled out his phone and set it on the seat so he could pick it up more easily when his friend telephoned.

Dumb fucker! Hopefully the idiot would deal with this soon, and be ready to admit it to the world. Lovino wasn't sure how long he could stand the pain of separation. But he would stand it, and not cave in. He was no desperate wimp, not going to crawl back to Arthur and let him dictate their lives again. Oh, no. Arthur would have to come to him.

He sat in his car for several hours, head resting on the steering wheel, the phone silent and cold beside him. His heart ached, his eyes burned, as he thought of their love, and what a fucking bleak future he'd have if he lost it all.

…

_Lars = Netherlands._

_I don't know if any of you read my author's notes, but here are two things I wanted to mention. Reviewers are commenting on Kiku's bastard behavior. Well, it was going to be Russia, right up until the day the other Skirmish Brothers chapter got published, and I kept thinking "Russia's always the bad guy in my stories. Why not use someone else?" It just needed to be someone in an alien culture and someone nationalistic/insular enough to reject the idea of living in the West, so, Japan won the draw._

_Also, re Gilbert, I just wanted to put him in some dumbass job that made me laugh._


	12. Chapter 12

Arthur still wasn't sure how to handle this bloody situation. He missed Lovino desperately, of course, but – but was he really ready to show off this relationship to the world? That first night, of course, he'd merely been irritated and angry, so he'd gone home and slurped up an entire pot of tea almost as gracelessly as Alfred might have done, cursing at Lovino's high-handed demand, and then went to sleep.

The next day, though, he'd sat to think about it and understood that his boyfriend wasn't being irrational in his demand. Certainly the way he'd laid down the ultimatum was irrational, but – but it wasn't unreasonable of him to want Arthur to be less uptight. It was hardly fair to be skulking in corners all the time, trying to avoid any public show of affection.

He'd reached for the telephone several times that day, but always backed off because he wasn't certain that he could admit what Lovino wanted to hear. Not in the long run.

This pretty much set the tone for the entire following week. He didn't sleep well, didn't eat well. Reached for the phone, then turned away. Spent most of his free time outside, shopping or just walking around his own neighborhood, so that he wouldn't be tempted to cycle past the Vargas house. If he stayed at home, he kept hovering near the computer, beginning and discarding plaintive emails. Bloody hell! What was he supposed to do? He wanted Lovino, but the idea of people thinking he was gay was…_intolerable._

One lonely, miserable week later, on Monday, while making deliveries near his friend's neighborhood, he finally dared to analyze this. Why was he so frightened of admitting it? As his friend had said, _he _didn't have a problem with it. Alfred and Sadik didn't. Lots of men admitted it. What exactly made it so intolerable to Arthur?

Well, his cousin would give him shit. That was a reason. And he didn't want Lovino to be embarrassed, or overpowered, by Alfred's idiotic behavior when the wanker found out. He knew the brunet had scant tolerance for gits like that. But that was fairly trivial. He could deal with Alfred, no problem, maybe beat him up if he had to. (Lovino got turned on by fights, he now knew. So that might actually be a plus!)

Sadik he didn't worry about at all; the Turk was so laid back that he'd probably just shout "Congratulations" and laugh for a while, slapping each of them on the back.

Wh-what about the people at work?

That worried him a great deal. If his supervisor, Braginsky, ever found out he was dating a man, it was a fairly sure thing that Arthur would lose his job.

Or would he? Maybe there was some non-discrimination rule? In fact, the more he thought about it, the more he thought that Braginsky _couldn't_ fire him for this. But how would he ever find out the regulations? If he asked about it, they'd know! Tossers.

He wished he and Lovino could run away and live on some deserted island together, eating fruits and swimming in the sea all day. Then he wouldn't have to worry a bit.

His family...that would be a big issue. All of them were still in the UK. He could postpone any kind of big announcement, true, but…eventually, if he wanted to stay with Lovino, he'd have to come out of the closet and take the Italian to meet his family.

That was terrifying as well. His brothers were noisy, nosy wankers, and would probably give them both a lot of shit, not even sparing the unknown Lovino. However, Arthur could probably manipulate things. Say he arranged a luncheon at a fancy London restaurant. He could introduce Lovino there. If the restaurant was elegant enough, nobody in his family would make a scene for fear of appearing gauche. Then they could suffer through the meal and escape, and not have to deal with any puerile insults and commentary from the rest of his family. Especially if the two of them stayed in a hotel and didn't tell anyone _which_ hotel. So…there was a way to deal with that, if this ever happened.

"_Bloody hell!"_ Arthur suddenly realized he'd have to broach the topic with his family before Alfred got wind of it. He could just imagine his idiot cousin telephoning the UK and cackling, "So, have you heard about Artie's new boyfriend, dude? Yeah, I said _boyfriend! _Hahahaha!" That would open up an entire set of excruciatingly painful long-distance family discussions, and he knew there was no way he could prevail upon Alfred to keep his gigantic flapping mouth shut if he found out first.

But all this was sort of secondary worries. His main problem at the moment would be getting back together with Lovino. He knew that when his friend said "Don't call me," he meant it. And since Arthur wasn't yet sure he could be bold enough to "man up," he hadn't tried to contact him. He wondered if Lovino felt as badly as he did. But the Italian hadn't telephoned, either. Maybe he was still stewing.

Oh, his heart ached; he lay in bed each night and dreamed of his delicious lover, his liquid amber eyes, his haunting voice, and the trusting and wild times they'd shared, laughing and loving. Arthur wondered if the rift had now lasted too long to repair. Many times during work he started to cruise past the Vargas home, but always detoured away at the last minute. If he saw Lovino, he couldn't afford to take the time to sort things out, not in the middle of his work day.

Today he couldn't stand it, though. He had to talk to him, to find out just how serious that ultimatum had been, even if it meant he'd be stuck working late. He had some time to drive by there now.

But what if Lovino wasn't home? Ah. He had an idea. Pulling off to the side of the road, he wrote a quick note on a piece of scrap paper ("Please call me, please!") and stuffed it into a FedEx overnight envelope, scrawling his friend's name on the front and sealing it. Before he could lose his nerve he drove right up to the house and ran to the front door, ringing the doorbell madly. His heart was pounding, and his palms clammy, despite the cool spring air. What if Lovino told him to piss off? He didn't even look good today; he'd been wearing his stupid cap, and his hair was all flat…

But the person who answered the door was a younger boy. This must be the younger brother; Arthur had never met him before. After those first few days he'd never been back to the Vargas house, because he'd been too embarrassed to be introduced as "Lovino's boyfriend." That actually made this easier to deal with. "Delivery for Lovino Vargas," he announced shakily, holding out the envelope.

"Ve, thanks! He's not here right now, but I'll give it to him."

Arthur nodded as the younger boy shut the front door, and then he ran to the truck and hightailed it out of that neighborhood at high speed.

…

He sat by the telephone all night, listening to it not ringing. Refreshed his emails every ten minutes, not receiving any. Checked the battery on his cell phone; it was fine. At one point Arthur did get so frustrated that he mounted his bicycle, intending to casually ride past the place, but halfway there (after a continuing lack of phone calls) he lost his nerve and went home. It was long past time for Lovino to have come home from wherever he was and read the note. And he hadn't called. P-perhaps he'd given up. Perhaps he'd found someone who would be the public boyfriend he wanted, and they were spending the night together?

By the time he got back home, tormenting himself with thoughts like this, Arthur felt sick to his stomach. What would his life be like now, now that it appeared Lovino didn't want him? Useless, bloody useless. Maybe he'd have to relocate. He locked up the bike and kicked the bike stand before going inside for yet another midnight pot of tea and more self-analysis.

Point 1: he did love Lovino.

Define love, he told himself. Maybe it wasn't really love? As he sat on the sofa and tried to work this out, his mind just kept coming back to that word. He knew it was. He _knew_ it. He'd never met any other person that he could relax with, that way; no one who had mattered to him in such a strong and intense way. There was absolutely nothing about their relationship (except admitting its existence to the world) that he would want to be different. Lovino would always rank as his first love.

Maybe his last one, too. He wasn't sure that he'd want to risk another relationship, not after this mess.

He didn't _want_ another relationship! He wanted Lovino, blast it all.

Point 2: hah. There was no point 2. He loved him, wanted to be with him. But if his friend had read the note and still hadn't called…

Would Arthur abase himself for this? Would he "man up" and deal with public acknowledgement of their relationship? And if Lovino had moved on, could he win him back? He spent most of his night tossing and turning again, worrying and thinking about this, trying to imagine them walking through the mall brazenly holding hands, like Lili and Lars had been doing. It terrified him.

But what choice, really, did he have?

…

_Braginsky = Russia_

_I'm counting Arthur's brothers as Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, though I know that's not technically true (plus none of those are canon characters). Plus Sealand, I guess. _


	13. Chapter 13

Lovino was mired in the worst depression of his entire life. Two fucking weeks and no phone call…he alternated between livid and tearful, and every time he saw a FedEx truck, his heart leaped and then plummeted. Should he be pissed off at Arthur for being weak? For not caring anymore? Of course he should. But instead he just felt immeasurably sad.

This was even worse than with Kiku, because he knew that this relationship had been real. The closeness, the sharing of thoughts and ideas, idle dreaming plans for their life together…he couldn't think about any of that shit without a clutching pain behind his breastbone. Knew he would always love the blond bastard. What could he do? Obviously Arthur had no interest any longer…the fucking homophobic bastard. Or whatever the hell you'd call it.

He'd tried to spend some time with Mathias and Gilbert, midweek, just to take his mind off all this shit. Naturally it had been a total fucking failure. Gilbert had a new girlfriend – some girl he'd met at stupid Victoria's Secret – and she was all he could talk about. Even Mathias was fed up with hearing about her, and Lovino, of course, didn't give a flying fuck.

"Man, she is _so sweet._" The albino sighed as his beer sat untouched on the bar table. "She's adorable and cute and just so…so nice! Not like these high-maintenance babes I usually date. But…man, she's also super-hot. Biggest knockers I ever saw." He grinned.

Lovino smacked him. "You are the most disrespectful idiot in the world."

"Hey, it isn't disrespectful if it's true!" Gilbert held out his hands in front of him to indicate how big her boobs were. "You can almost hear them bouncing when she walks."

Mathias punched him a little more forcefully. "Lovino's right. You're a fucking jackass, Gilbert."

"Hey, why, though? I really like her! I thought maybe we could have some fun in the dressing room, you know, me picking out bras, her showing me how they look…but no."

It was like a train wreck, Lovino decided. Appalling, but he had to know. "Why not?"

"She's too chesty! Doesn't fit in our merchandise. Kesesese!"

Mathias covered his face. "Do not tell me you're dating a fat chick, Gilbert. You'll make her miserable, she'll make you miserable; it'll all end in misery."

"Oh, shut up, both of you. Katia's totally nice and sweet and curvy. She's not fat, and I'm not taking advantage of her for sex. We have a great relationship! She works at Build-A-Bear Workshop. We have lunch together every day."

"That's it?" Well, at least this shit was taking his mind off Arthur. "I mean, you don't take her out on any actual dates?"

"Well, not yet! We just met on Saturday afternoon, and she had to work on Saturday night and Sunday. But we're going to go to the drive-in this weekend." The white eyebrows waggled.

Yes, their town was one of the few remaining in America that still had a drive-in theatre, and it was still pretty popular. Lovino had never been there, but he knew why Gilbert liked to go. Gilbert had a big-ass car and he would sweet-talk his dates into the back seat to fool around. "Is that all you ever think about?" he wondered.

"Pretty much." Mathias clapped Gilbert on the shoulder and they all began to laugh together.

By the time they were done for the night, Lovino (still surprisingly sober) felt a lot better. Sure, Arthur was being a dick, but he still had his friends. They'd be together through thick and thin, the three of them.

Though he did wonder how things might change between them if Gilbert and this new girlfriend really got going. The bastard never seemed to last long in relationships. Just like his jobs. A couple months and they were out the door. Oh, Gilbert always blamed "the bitch" (no matter which girl it was), but now he began to wonder if his friend was at fault. Maybe his rampant sex drive caused the girls to break up with him. Lord knew he couldn't keep his dick zipped. The albino would screw anything in a skirt.

Then he laughed, parking his car, and wondered whether Gilbert would ever have sex with a guy.

_Not_ that Lovino wanted to sleep with him. No way.

So he was in a pretty upbeat mood when he walked in the house that night, still laughing about that. Feli and his grandfather had already gone to bed, so he simply slipped upstairs and got ready to sleep, trying to keep the idea of Arthur out of his head. The night had been a success…he didn't want to fuck it up by lying in bed being miserable about his own love life!

Dammit. He should have known he couldn't keep the bastard out of his head. But at least he'd bought a few hours of relief. He pulled the covers up over his head and groaned, before trying to get to an Arthur-free mental zone, and sleep.

…

By Friday Lovino felt angrier than he ever had in his life. He'd unwisely allowed himself to dwell (over and over and over) on Arthur's behavior, on their lack of relationship, and how sad he really was. To combat this, he stormed around all evening, irritating everyone, and finally his grandfather demanded he get out of the house and give them some peace. The old man even slipped him a $50 to sweeten the deal! "Yeah, fine," he caved, snatching the cash and pelting upstairs to change into something cool. He'd go to Tino's. There would be someone sympathetic there – if not Tino himself, then Berwald, who always listened even if he didn't offer much commentary in exchange. Maybe Lovino would be able to figure out how his heart felt, see if he was ready to try again.

He knew that he was _not_ ready, but ignored that little voice. He did need to do something to stop obsessing about Arthur. Getting out of the house would be good, and he couldn't talk to his dumbass friends, or they would start prying. Dammit, they didn't even know he and Arthur had been dating!

The little voice also pointed out that he could call Arthur instead of sitting around waiting, but he wasn't ready to do that either. After all this time, he was kind of s-scared to talk to the bastard. Maybe his friend had given up, had considered Lovino a failed experiment, gone back to girls. Damn it all.

When he got to the bar, the place was pretty busy. Berwald nodded but couldn't take the time to speak; he was three deep in customers. Lovino took his Bloody Mary and went instinctively to lean against the part of the wall where he and Arthur always leaned. "Fuck," he muttered, recoiling from that area in disgust as he realized that. He knocked back his drink all in one go, already irritated about coming here. What the hell had he hoped to accomplish? It was already bringing him nothing but pain.

Before he could find another place to stand and observe, a gorgeous dark-haired man appeared in front of him. "_Hola,_" he said, in a thick Spanish accent. "Are you here alone?"

Not trusting himself to speak, Lovino looked into the man's twinkling green eyes – _so like Arthur's, dammit_ – and nodded.

"Will you dance with me?"

Lovino bit his lip. With slow deliberation, he nodded again. He would do it just to see if he could get rid of the desperate longing for Arthur in his heart. Dancing with someone else ought to help him move past the dumb English _bastardo._ Dammit.

A slow song began, and the Spaniard reached for him with joy. "My name is Antonio."

"I'm Lovino," he said quietly, setting down his glass and stepping into the circle of the other man's arms, placing his own arms up to embrace him.

This was already too fucking agonizing. But he didn't want to be a rude bastard and run off, and anyway, it was just a goddamn dance. He could leave afterwards, go home, or go for a walk so he wouldn't bug his stupid wimpy family.

Lovino closed his eyes, feeling Antonio's hands on his waist, and leaned against him, remembering, always remembering, the soft sweet perfection of that first dance with Arthur, how his heart had knocked around crazily in his rib cage, how his friend had smelled so nice, trusted him so completely. He let those memories stream through his head, filling him with both pain and sweetness: memories of Arthur yawning at him, Arthur holding him, Arthur saying he'd follow Lovino to the ends of the earth. Dammit, his heart was still full of the Brit, and there was no room for anyone else. M-maybe he'd been too pushy? Maybe the bastard really did just need a little more time…?

So completely was his mind wrapped up in this that when the song ended he drew back from his dance partner with reluctance, glancing upwards. The Spaniard's breath caught, and Lovino, confused, frowned delicately and blinked. What was he doing here with this dumb bastard? He wanted Arthur!

But the dumb bastard must have taken his frown for invitation. He leaned down and kissed Lovino intimately on the mouth.

Of course the Italian responded automatically – and then he realized just what the fuck he was doing and drew back from Antonio, wiping his lips with the back of his hand. "Dammit!" He scowled and turned away, and the first thing he saw was the drained, shocked face of Arthur in the middle of the dance floor, green eyes blazing under the thick dark eyebrows, staring at him as though his heart would break.

…

_Katia (Ukraine) would totally work at Build-A-Bear Workshop._


	14. Chapter 14

_Well, Orithyea...you can have both!_

_..._

Lovino attempted a hesitant smile, but the Brit had already turned and fled. "Arthur, wait!" he yelled, shoving through the crowds after him, ignoring the now-baffled Spaniard. "Wait!"

But he didn't catch up to him until they were outside, where the blond stood scowling fiercely with his arms folded. "So you've moved on?" he barked out.

He was too happy to see him to register this angry comment. Dammit, he looked good…even the fucking eyebrows looked fantastic…"B-bastard? W-were you looking for me?" He hardly dared hope. His f-friend's stance was so angry, but his face was confused and – were those tears in his eyes? Jesus…Lovino felt tears of his own forming and forced an angry expression to get rid of them.

"Why were you kissing him? _Have _you moved on?"

"Fuck this," he snarled, shoving a hand through his hair and glancing around. He was angry because once again they were trying to have a private discussion on the sidewalk in front of Tino's. But then the Spanish bastard burst out the door, spotted him, and hurried over, apparently not seeing Arthur.

"Where did you run off to, _cariño?_ I wanted to dance some more!"

Distracted and irritated, Lovino turned to him and shouted, "What? Fuck off! I'm busy and don't want to dance with you!"

From the corner of his eye he saw Arthur smile and his stance relax a little; Antonio, startled, backed off with a grin. "_Lo siento_, little firecracker. Didn't mean to pressure you. If you want me, I'll be inside." He winked. "Because I definitely want you. You were _delicious_."

"Piss off, you bloody tosser," Arthur snarled, shoving the Spaniard aside.

"Like hell!" Antonio punched him.

Lovino stared in horror as the two of them began to beat the shit out of each other right in the parking lot. Passersby laughed and gave them a wide berth, or stopped to watch and cheer them on, but the Italian was too stunned to try to stop the fight, at first.

But Arthur finally flung Antonio up against the outside wall of the bar and held him there with an arm across his throat and a fist at his gut, held ready to strike. Lovino couldn't hear him and was too afraid to get closer, but when the Brit removed his arm, Antonio, with a last rueful glance at Lovino, rubbed his throat and scurried back into Tino's.

"What did you say to him?" He wasn't sure what else to say. He was aroused and mostly kind of relieved that his friend had come here – but also a little worried about this dumbass fight (though Arthur was undoubtedly the victor). Would they be shoved back into more painful drama because of it?

Arthur turned to him. He didn't appear to have suffered much. With a half-grin, fixing his hair and his t-shirt, he said, "I bet you liked that. Two blokes fighting over you?"

"I – I like any kind of fighting, you know that." But that was a distraction. He stepped closer. Lovino would not let him get away, this time. He would not be alone tonight, crying and cursing. Whatever it took, he would do. This chance had fallen into his lap and he would not let it slide by! "I've missed you so much."

The eyebrows drew down in a scowl again. "Yet you were _kissing him! _You must have missed me a hell of a lot," he added, with that heavy sarcasm Lovino had always loved.

Shit. "It – it was an accident, bastard," he blurted out. Christ, that sounded so fucking lame. But he tried to explain it, rubbing his forehead and staring at the ground. "That whole dance – all I could think about was you, dancing with you and all the other shit we used to do, how we used to be, and then he just sort of – sort of –" He gave up and shrugged, hoping Arthur would believe him. "I wasn't expecting it. I am so sorry. Even when we first started the dance I knew I had no intention of spending any time with him afterwards." Would that be enough? Did he sound sincere? He glanced up again.

The green eyes still seemed troubled. "Well…if you say so." Arthur still sounded a bit nervous, and no wonder. "Are you looking for someone new? You – you didn't call me when you got my note, and I thought – I worried that you – er –"

"Note? What are you talking about?"

"You – you didn't get my note? I put a note in a Fedex envelope for you and delivered it earlier this week. I thought you didn't care anymore, since you never called. But I had to hear the words. Took a risk that you might be here tonight." He hung his head. "I had to talk to you, find out what you were feeling and thinking. Wh-when I saw you kiss that tosser, I thought it was all over."

Still baffled about the mention of a note, Lovino ignored that. He had received no envelope. "Maybe the note blew away?"

"No. I handed it to someone at the door. Your little brother, I thought. Looks a bit like you? Talks in a girly voice?"

"That goddamned _moron!_ He never gave me anything!" Lovino nearly spat on the ground before getting control of himself. "What do you want to bet it's lying on the floor somewhere, or in some pile of junk mail? I'm going to beat the shit out of that little idiot. I would have called you right away, if I'd gotten it." But he still couldn't tell whether Arthur wanted to be with him or not. Did he just want to break up? "Do you – do you st-still want me?" His mind gabbled hasty prayers as he waited for the answer, and he had to close his eyes. Damn that idiot Feliciano! A whole goddamn week wasted!

"I…er…I think we need to talk, at any rate," Arthur said softly, without answering the question.

Lovino opened his eyes, nodding slightly, stomach churning. "Uh-huh. Okay. Your place?"

"N-no. Let's go get coffee, or something."

Shit. _Shit!_ If Arthur didn't want to be alone with him, it meant he was going to say some bad stuff. Lovino's heart sank. Maybe he should have stayed with the Spanish bastard after all.

No. He would rather be with Arthur, even if this was the last time. To look at him, memorize his beloved features…dammit. He heaved a deep breath and agreed. "There's a little place right around the corner."

"Okay." Arthur walked off in the direction he indicated, and Lovino strode to keep up. Damn it all.

…

_Well, there's the obligatory Spain/England fight. _


	15. Chapter 15

As they sat on the shop's empty couch with their coffee, which both of them promptly ignored, Arthur took a deep breath. On the one hand, he was encouraged, because the place was fairly empty at this hour. He could say what he had to say without feeling too self-conscious. On the other hand, he noticed Lovino was sitting a little further away than he normally would. Was this _only _because they were in a public place, or was it because he wasn't interested anymore? The sight of that man holding him, _kissing _him – whether it had been premeditated or not – enraged Arthur so badly, and he ground his teeth at the memory. Lovino was _his! _ Er, well, say rather that he _had been_. Maybe he wasn't, any longer. Even so, the Brit wished he'd gone further and beaten the intrusive Spaniard to a pulp. Also, he was still a little angry with Lovino about that kiss. 'Accidental'? Maybe. Maybe not. Either way it was difficult to stomach.

But at least his friend hadn't taken that man's side during the fight, or gone back into Tino's with him. That would have been the final nail in the coffin.

Well, Arthur had made up his mind, and he knew the only way to get through all this was to talk it out. "How have you been?" he began, in a voice much hoarser than he'd hoped to use. Bloody hell, he sounded like he was going to cry. But to be together again after all this time – bugger. He cleared his throat and waited, panicking, for the answer, gazing at his lover with a deep sadness.

"I'm all right, I guess," Lovino shrugged, sounding nonchalant, almost pissed off. "The usual shit." He didn't meet Arthur's eyes.

Blast. Maybe he really didn't give a damn. The ache grew stronger, but Arthur tried to sound just as cool and offhand. "Same here. Just wondered how you were. Thought I'd check in." This whole conversation sounded so cold already, and all he wanted to do was sweep Lovino into his arms and hold him forever. But at this point he was almost certain they were about to break up. "No news?" he finished weakly.

"Nah. Just slacking around at home." But then Lovino sat up straighter and put a hand on Arthur's arm. "No. Wait."

Arthur quailed. What was wrong? What had he done now?

The brunet took a very deep breath and stared intensely at him, his cheeks flaming red. "Listen, I – I'm not going to dick around with this conversation, or act all macho and shit any longer. I've been f-fucking miserable without you, Arthur. Regretting what I said to you that day, and wishing I could take it back. Thinking about you nonstop." He stopped speaking and took his hand away. "Maybe you want to break up, but I – "

Arthur felt the knot of tension slacken. Lovino had never once lied to him before this; why would he start now? He began to feel as though it might work out all right! He took a deep breath and leaped into the pause. "So have I. Been miserable, I mean. Thoughts going around like bees in my brain." He twisted his fingers in his lap. "First I – I need to apologize to you for being so bloody selfish for so long. All that time before…before you, er, laid down the law, I just kept trying to avoid the subject with myself. I still envisioned gay men as being abnormal, outcasts, or whatever. Couldn't deal with the idea of people thinking that way about me. Even total strangers, like the chaps at Tino's. When they looked at me – just _looked_ – I felt so embarrassed, like I was being weighed up and judged. Even though they're all just the same way."

"Nobody at Tino's really gives a damn. Probably they were just admiring you."

"Don't distract me."

"O-okay." Lovino shrank back into the seat cushions a little nervously.

Oh, he must have sounded much too autocratic. Bloody hell. Apparently his words weren't working right. So, here in this (albeit sparsely populated) public place, Arthur took his first step towards reconciliation. He boldly reached out and took his friend's hand in his own, heart pounding. The brunet's eyebrows went up, but he didn't say anything, and didn't pull away either. The green eyes flicked around the restaurant, but no one was looking. Whew! "Anyway, after you said that to me, I finally let myself think about it. Made myself really analyze it. And there were really only two choices. I could keep sticking my head in the sand and lose you, or I could admit my l-love and try to win you back. Losing you was unacceptable, so here I am." Feeling nervous and showy, but determined to do it, he lifted Lovino's hand and kissed the fingers, right in the middle of the coffee shop. "Do you still want to be with me?" He held his breath.

But it turned out he needn't have. The amber eyes softened in that romantic way Lovino had, and he smiled. He withdrew his hand, but used it to pat Arthur's leg. "Are you crazy? There's nothing I want more in the world than for us to get over this shit and be together again. But this is _not _the place for romance," he hissed. "Even just kissing my hand."

Arthur slumped back into the cushions in relief. It would be all right! "I – I had to try – to – er, to show – oh, bloody hell, I don't know how to explain." He cut his eyes to the cooling cup of coffee before him, debated drinking some, but didn't. "Will you forgive me for taking so long to deal with it?"

Lovino's voice was rich and caressing. "Of course I forgive you, _biondo_. You're more important to me than anyone or anything in the world. Of _course _I forgive you, and I hope you forgive me for making that nasty demand, too." He subtly pressed his knee against Arthur's.

"I don't want to live without you," the blond admitted. Not loudly, but loud enough that Lovino would understand he wasn't hiding it. "Please? I'll do whatever I have to, admit anything, to be back with you." Tears popped into his eyes and he blinked them away. "We can go back to Tino's, or whatever you like, any public place at all, and I'll be happy to show it. Dance, kiss, hug, say anything to anyone. Whatever you feel is best."

"Oh, Arthur. How brave you're being." Lovino took his hand again. "I wouldn't put you through that right now_._ I can see you're still stressed, and" – his voice dropped – "I l-love you too much to push you into something that frightens you so. Let's just take it naturally? If we're out, and you want to hold my hand, or whatever, that's okay. Don't push yourself into anything. Okay? I don't want to lose you either."

"Yes! Okay." They squeezed their hands together, and it felt so right. The two of them sat staring happily into each other's eyes for a few minutes, while around them, the world happened.

Suddenly Lovino began to poke him repeatedly in the thigh. "Now tell me something, you fucking bastard. If you wanted to make up, why did you bring me here? I thought you wanted a public place so you could break up with me without making a scene!"

"Never that." Arthur shook his head. "I just wanted to show you that I was willing to be together this way, in public. Did – did I do wrong?"

"You had me scared for a while. But – but honestly, don't worry. It was totally my fault. I'll give you as much time as you need to get used to it."

"No." He laughed a little. "I have to dive in headfirst. If I keep up all this bloody shillyshallying, it won't happen."

"Whatever works for you, _biondo mio_, as long as it keeps us together. But it's driving me nuts to sit here looking at you and not hold you. Let me take you home, and we can talk things over and make up, properly."

"Better let me wash your mouth out with soap first. Get rid of the taste of Spain." Arthur smiled and bro-hugged him so tightly that Lovino began to cough, and then they laughed together and walked back to his car holding hands, untouched drinks forgotten.

…

When they reached the apartment, they collapsed together instinctively on the sofa; Arthur didn't even bother putting the kettle on as he usually did. Lovino reached out and pulled him close, running his fingers through the blond hair. "My family's going to be so thankful to you."

"What? For what?"

"I've been driving them up the fucking wall. I've been a real bastard without you, Arthur. Thanks for being brave."

"Didn't have a choice," he sighed dramatically. "Haven't been eating or sleeping properly. Now that we've made up, maybe I can get some sleep!" He pulled Lovino closer and laughed a little.

"I don't believe sleeping should be on your immediate agenda, _mio caro._" Lovino leaned closer with a very sweet smile. Ah, blast it, Arthur loved that smile…

But he wanted to tease his friend a little, so he asked, "What do you suggest instead? We could go bowling? Maybe play some Modern Warfare?"

"Shut up, you idiot." Lips finally met in a celebration of love, strengthening and renewing them. "Mm. Thank you so much for being strong. You really are the most perfect bastard ever."

"Thanks, git. I love you too."

…

Lying on the floor later, snuggling close under a blanket, Arthur took the warm hands in his and cleared his throat. "I have – have some favors to ask you."

"You can ask me anything," the surprised Lovino responded. "You know that."

"I would like to meet your family." He felt a little scared still at this idea, but it was the logical first step for him.

"What, my grandfather and that featherbrain? Well, yeah, I see your point. Okay. Maybe we can have a family dinner Sunday and I'll invite you." He snorted. "Just don't be surprised if my idiot brother's in a full body cast. I'm going to make his life an absolute hell for losing your envelope."

Arthur ignored this. "Do – do you think they'll mind me coming over? Have you ever brought any boys home before?" He turned red just asking this, but had to know.

"Nope. I always tried to keep home life and love life separate." Lovino stared up at the ceiling as he said this.

"If you don't want to – "

"Bastard, are you nuts? Of course I want to. I've always wanted to be so close to someone, so secure, that I could do that. Never was, though. It's just the right time for this. Yes. I want to take you home and introduce you to them." His voice grew warmer. "I want to show them how awesome you are, and let them see how much you care for me." He pouted a little. "They think I'm such a bastard. Maybe it'll reassure them to know someone wants me just the way I am."

"I wouldn't want you to change, that's for sure." Arthur sighed in pleasure, kissing the warm hands. Then he remembered there was something else. "I have another favor to ask, though." This might be more difficult.

"What else? Whatever you want, _biondo,_ whatever." Lovino rolled over and hugged him. "Anything! I'm just _so fucking happy_ that you were strong enough to come into Tino's to find me. And you beat up that Spanish bastard! That was pretty fun to watch." They laughed together. "What's your other favor?"

"Er, well, you know our camping trip? I – I have a different idea I'd like to do instead." Arthur held his breath.

"Like what? I don't mind. Whatever you like. I want to spend all our free time together to make up for what we missed." He combed his fingers through the blond hair, smiling almost dazedly.

"Bloody hell, you're marvelous." Arthur took a break from the discussion to roll over, hold and caress his friend, feeling so perfect and high. While kissing his ear, he murmured, "I want to go to London."

"Huh? You mean we have to postpone the camping trip? Okay, but – why? Is something wrong? Family trouble?"

Oh. Arthur hadn't even considered how that would sound. He stopped kissing. "No, I meant both of us, together, for our vacation."

"You're serious? I'd love to. I've always wanted to see more of Europe than just Italy, but never have the chance. Homesick?" Lovino pulled him back down beside him, and took his hand again. "I hope I can keep you happy enough that you're not homesick."

"Er, no, that's not it." He explained his bloody stupid panic about Alfred spilling the beans before he had a chance to mention it to his family.

"Oh! Oh, all right, loverboy. You can take me to London and exhibit me to everyone."

This was said in such a joyous tone that Arthur rolled over once more, laughing, and hugged Lovino until he began to cough again. "Thank God all that pain is over."

"Never again," Lovino agreed, kissing him, and for a while, they drowned those sorrowful memories in the closeness of their love.

…

_Not sure how much more there will be. Some, but it's not going to be some epic thing like "Love and Art."_


	16. Chapter 16

Lovino's heart swelled with pride in Arthur, the day he brought the blond home to meet Feli and his grandfather. Trembling visibly, but with a happy look in his eye and a firm handshake, the Brit came boldly to that dinner to prove his love. Dammit. Lovino even had to wipe a tear from his eye. But Grandpa and Feli treated Arthur kindly, even though they'd not been prompted about his nervousness, and the dinner went quite well. The two grandsons were at the top of their culinary game, and everyone ate happily while chatting about all sorts of random topics.

"We're quite pleased to finally meet you," Grandpa said at parting, shaking Arthur's hand once again. "Lovino has been too selfish to allow us the pleasure of your company."

"It wasn't his fault. I – had to come to it in my own time."

Wisely, Grandpa didn't inquire too deeply into that. "Regardless – we're happy to have you as part of the family now." Feli agreed with a squeal and a hug, making Arthur snort in surprise.

Lovino stood blinking once more, feeling sappy and safe, and then the two of them made their escape and ran to the quiet haven of the blond's apartment to laugh and relax together, sharing the soft and sweet phrases they saved for private times, the talks that his heart craved. He was never going to lose Arthur again.

…

The UK trip too went well, as long as they were doing their own traveling. But on their last evening, Arthur finally called his family and scheduled the big Kirkland family dinner…which turned out a total fucking disaster.

The blond's predictions about family commentary were spot on. A few seconds of stunned disbelief, a few "No way!" from the youngest (Lovino still couldn't keep their names straight), followed by quiet homophobic comments and taunting, low enough that the other diners couldn't hear them. He and Arthur suffered through the meal, each trying to keep his dignity, and afterwards (when the blond had paid the entire whopping bill himself), it took a very long ramble around London to both calm the angry Lovino down and put Arthur back at his ease. "A bunch of wankers," the Brit eventually muttered after a torturous silence, hands jammed into his jacket pockets. "I'm so sorry."

"Don't worry about me, bastard. I'm used to it by now. But it must have hurt you."

"In a way. In another way it was totally what I'd expected. They've lived down to their reputations."

"Well, you won't see them much, if that's any consolation. You're not planning to come back here often, right? Let them think what they want. If you're happy – " Christ, he hoped Arthur was still happy. Hoped all tonight's negative commentary wouldn't set back their relationship.

"Of course I'm happy, you brainless git." Arthur, taking his hand with a smile, led him off in another direction. "If I wasn't, we wouldn't be here." He squeezed that hand so hard that Lovino had to beg him to let go, and they wandered off together laughing, settling back down, preparing to come back home.

…

It wasn't until a week later that Lovino felt he could bring up the next important topic. He knew he needed to get off his ass and find work, but since no architectural firms were interested, he'd have to take more drastic measures. He wanted to clear the air about this now; after dinner they were meeting Mathias and Gilbert – for the first time since Arthur had come out – and he figured they'd be too drunk to talk about it later, or maybe just too damn horny. "So, _biondo…_can I ask you something?"

"You just did," Arthur snarked, dishing out soup into bowls at his apartment.

"Shut up. Listen, I – I have something important to talk about." He spared a minute to glance around the tiny, neat apartment.

"O-okay." Nervously the blond set the bowls on the table and sat down, his eyes wide. "Something wrong?"

"Ah, you adorable idiot, no. No. I just – I had this idea, and it's a big one, so I wanted to see what you might think about it."

The blond looked even more panicky than before, almost as panicky as Lovino himself now felt. "Go on."

"Well. I hate this apartment."

"What? Why?" Arthur's head whipped around as he looked at it. "I try to keep it neat, and it's in a good location – ?"

"It's too fucking small for both of us!"

"I know, but you – _oh!_ You want to move in together? Yes, please!"

The beaming expression on his lover's face was so funny that Lovino burst into relieved laughter. "Yes, moron. That's what I was going to ask. Sort of."

"What do you mean now?" Still grinning, Arthur began to slurp up soup.

"F-for a long time now, I've been working on drawings of a building. Like a – a dream house for us." Lovino ignored Arthur's sudden starry-eyed, sweet, romantic expression and set his own spoon down. "It's just a little cottage kind of thing, but I have really refined it a lot, and – and I thought, if you liked it, maybe we could have it built and move in there together." He stared at the bowl of soup shyly. "You can even add to, or change, some of the design, if you want."

"Forgive me for being a bit of a wet blanket, but – can we afford it? You know my salary, but – "

The brunet nodded. "I know I'll have to get a job. Uh, one of the ideas I had was going to work for FedEx. Another one I had was starting my own architectural firm. I drew an office wing on the house where I could work."

"Wow." Arthur leaned back in his chair. "You've really been thinking, haven't you? This is all so sudden."

"Not really. I've been thinking about it practically since we met."

"I love you."

"Romantic idiot." They gazed at each other happily.

"Er, do you have any business experience? For running a company? I don't."

Lovino fiddled with the spoon. He still hadn't eaten any soup. Partially this was nerves about the discussion, partially nerves about Arthur's cooking. "No. B-but that's what my grandfather does, and that's what Feli's studying too. So maybe they could help me, or help me find someone to help out for a while, so I can learn the ropes."

"This is a really big step. You amaze me, Lovino. But, whatever you want. I'm happy to back you up any way you need me."

Finally smiling, the Italian dared to take a spoonful of soup, and managed not to spit it out or choke on it. Disgusting. "Uh, well, then, bastard…will you back me up by taking me to a restaurant for dinner?"

…

"How are you guys? Haven't seen you in a long time," Mathias laughed. "Too busy for us, huh?"

"Did you move in together yet?" added Gilbert.

Both Arthur and Lovino were struck silent for a time. "Eh?" the Brit finally said, at the same time Lovino said "What?"

"Kesesese! I just wondered if you ever moved in together."

"Er, ah, well, you – you knew we were dating?" Arthur's voice went beyond puzzlement.

"Hah! Of course we did." The Dane ruffled up Lovino's hair, earning a smack. "He never brought any new friends to meet us before you. Not even just friends. So, we figured…" He grinned and let the sentence drop.

"Well, _bugger!"_ After this outburst he and Lovino looked at each other and burst out laughing. Guess all his hiding and denying had been for nothing, then. The blond pulled up a chair and plopped into it. "Good guess."

"So? _Did_ you move in together?" Gilbert was never one who could let a question go unanswered.

"Not yet, you fucking nosy idiot. Just shut up about it." Lovino ordered the first round of drinks and they began to drink, Arthur accepting the 'honor' of designated driver for the evening. He sat calmly and listened to the three friends bicker – which was really all they ever seemed to do – and thought about how calmly the other two had dealt with this. Sure, they cared for Lovino, and had known him a long time – so they had probably paid more attention to the situation than most outsiders had.

Pfft. Screw it. He didn't give a damn anymore. He laughed at one of Gilbert's jokes and sat back, swigging Coke, and wondered very suddenly whether all the albino's talk of "chicks" was denial, too.

"Her brother doesn't like me," he heard Gilbert say sourly. "So we broke up. A while ago. I'm just hanging out with Mathias now, since you abandoned us." He fluttered his eyelashes at Lovino, who laughed and kicked him.

"Shut up. Well? Not dating anyone else?"

"Nah. Not worth it. It's time for a break. I think when the right one comes along, I'll know it."

Arthur slipped back into a little reverie while he considered whether Gilbert and Mathias would make a good couple. Certainly they got along almost as well as he and Lovino did. But then, he didn't know them both very well.

Hah! Maybe they actually _were_ dating, and just happened to be better at hiding it than he was! At this thought, he snorted some soda accidentally and both Mathias and a concerned Lovino began to slap him on the back. "Bastard? What happened?"

"Eh, nothing," he said, when he could talk again. "Coke up my nose." Discussion turned to various sinus-related accidents, and he forgot what he had been thinking about.

…

_Not sure whether this will turn into DenPru or not. I kind of want to change that a bit._


	17. Chapter 17

"It pays to have friends," Arthur laughed, settling back in his deck chair with a cap tilted over his eyes to block the sun.

"Amen to that." Lovino reached out his drink and they clinked glasses, listening to the sounds of splashing and squeals across the yard.

Why are friends so important?

Lili, a real estate agent, had helped them find a plot of land to build their new home, and had handled the transaction efficiently.

Mathias' construction company had built the home at a very reasonable cost, and in good time, too.

Gilbert, who was always looking for a better situation, had taken a job as a furniture salesman, and helped the two of them furnish their dream home at a discount.

Grandpa and Feliciano had helped Lovino with all the business things he needed, although in the end he'd decided not to jump into running his own architectural firm just yet. He was keeping the idea on hold for later, though.

Alfred (who had been quite gentlemanly when introduced to Lovino, and not a git at all) had helped the brunet find work at his software company. He was only working as an administrator, but making a respectable salary.

Arthur had continued to work at FedEx, taking all the overtime he could get, in order to help fund the house project.

And Sadik, just for the fun of it, had exuberantly designed the theme for their small wedding, which had taken place this morning. Same-sex marriage had been legalized here last May.

The noise in the distance was the sound of all their friends laughing and splashing in the backyard pool. On a sweltering day like today, holding the low-key reception in the newly-completed grounds was a perfect idea.

Arthur held his hand up and scrutinized his new wedding band in the sunlight, sipping vodka. "I love hot days," he grinned, reaching his hand to his lover's, finding it waiting for him.

"Amen to that too, sweet bastard." Lovino kissed his fingers and poured the rest of his martini down his throat. "Let's get in that pool. No sense letting everyone else have all the fun."

…

_The end! Thanks to everyone who read and reviewed. __This is probably my last story, though I do need to wrap up Skirmish Brothers in a good way. See you there._


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